Reliance Foundation, University of Chicago join hands

Reliance Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Reliance Industries, India’s largest private-sector company, and the University of Chicago have announced a collaboration to develop innovative technology that will help train medical students and clinicians for better diagnosis and improved healthcare.

The partnership will develop cloud-based software applications that can train medical professionals using case studies written by experienced physicians and state-of-the-art clinical reasoning methods, RIL said in a statement.

The collaboration is also supporting doctors in real time with evidence-based clinical decision-making tools.

“Provided through technology partners i-Human Patients, Inc. and AgileMD, the software will help improve medical education and provide point-of-care clinical decision support tools for healthcare practitioners. These tools will help reduce diagnostic errors, improve outcomes and help save many lives,” RIL said.

The programme will be piloted in Reliance Foundation’s Sir HN Reliance Foundation Hospital and Research Centre in Mumbai.

“Through this collaboration, we look forward to bringing in a technology-based revolution in providing medical education and equipping healthcare professionals to achieve greater standards of excellence," Jagannatha Kumar, CEO, Reliance Foundation said.

Faculty members of the University of Chicago Medicine, led by Scott Stern, MD, have developed the symptom to diagnosis clinical reasoning methodology.

This evidence-based approach to clinical reasoning forms the foundation for the clinical education and point-of-care products being developed in collaboration with Reliance Foundation. Stern will lead the case development team made up of leading medical educators from the US and India.

Dr Vinay Kumar, Donald N. Pritzker Professor and Chairman of Department of Pathology at the University of Chicago said: “We have developed this evidence-based program which, with the power of technology, can be widely disseminated.”

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL)