In a bid to find alternatives to high-cost healthcare facilities, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) New Delhi is collaborating with other institutes to conduct research in various fields including biomedical engineering, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, reports The New Indian Express.

“We are collaborating in research in frugal innovations to develop efficient and low-cost treatment strategies relevant to the developing world and emerging markets. Technological innovations are at the heart of societal progress. Some life-changing technologies are very costly, thereby making them less affordable and accessible to poorer communities,” Randeep Guleria, director of AIIMS, was quoted in the report as saying.

Guleria was addressing an event jointly organised by the AIIMS, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The AIIMS director added that making affordable health technology accessible to the masses, especially in the developing countries, remained a massive challenge.

“Pressure on healthcare budgets is immense…AIIMS has the unique opportunity of leading this field as it has the infrastructure as well as the committed highest class clinician-scientists who can identify such areas and provide affordable solutions,” he said.

The premier medical institute has collaborated with many national and international education and research institutes, including Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, IIT Kharagpur, University College of London and Cologne University, Germany and others, for conducting research to develop low-cost medical options.