Pakistan is set to advance its healthcare modernisation efforts as the Asian Development Bank introduces a regional technical assistance programme aimed at accelerating the adoption of artificial intelligence in health services. The initiative, titled Reaping the Benefits of Artificial Intelligence for Service Excellence in Health, also known as RAISE Health, forms part of a broader regional push to integrate digital tools into public health systems across developing member countries.
Valued at 950,000 dollars, the technical assistance project is financed by the People’s Republic of China Poverty Reduction and Regional Cooperation Fund and will support project design and implementation in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Pakistan. According to project documents, the programme will generate knowledge resources to guide artificial intelligence integration in healthcare projects supported by ADB. It will also provide capacity development for national counterparts through study tours, regional workshops, and structured training programmes. A key focus of the initiative is women’s empowerment, particularly by enhancing productivity gains through artificial intelligence adoption and strengthening digital and artificial intelligence literacy among female health workers.
The regional assistance aims to improve understanding and speed up deployment of artificial intelligence applications in health systems across participating countries. It will support the development of governance frameworks to ensure responsible and effective use of emerging technologies. These frameworks are expected to address validation mechanisms, data privacy safeguards, mitigation of algorithmic bias, and post market performance monitoring strategies. Governments in the participating countries have sought ADB’s support in building practical regulatory and oversight models that can accommodate anticipated artificial intelligence innovations while maintaining ethical and equitable standards of care. The programme will also conduct surveys of available artificial intelligence tools in healthcare and assist countries in drafting road maps for domestic ecosystems that integrate research and development, technology transfer, commercialisation, and procurement processes.
The initiative aligns with ADB’s Strategy 2030 Midterm Review and the Strategy 2030 Health Sector Directional Guide, contributing to priorities such as digital transformation, private sector development, resilience, and empowerment. It also supports key indicators outlined in the Corporate Results Framework 2025 to 2030. In addition, the technical assistance complements country partnership strategies that emphasise improved health services as an investment in human development and long term human capital formation. While the Asia and Pacific region has recorded steady gains in health outcomes since 2010 and demonstrated resilience in recovering from the coronavirus disease pandemic, health systems continue to face mounting pressure from non communicable diseases, reemerging infectious threats, and ageing populations. Although the global universal health coverage service coverage index has improved significantly over the past two decades, many developing member countries still trail global averages and grapple with high out of pocket expenditures.
The programme will initially concentrate on three categories of artificial intelligence applications that have reached relative maturity. Among them is the use of artificial intelligence in clinical settings, including smart point of care diagnostics and treatment support systems. Advances in image processing and pattern recognition are enabling medical equipment to deliver highly accurate diagnoses at the point of care. Such technologies are already being applied in areas such as cervical cancer screening, radiological imaging, ophthalmology, dermatology, and high resolution microscopy. Through structured knowledge exchange and institutional strengthening, ADB aims to help participating countries build readiness for artificial intelligence adoption in ways that enhance equitable access and improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery.
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