Google eye-AI scales from one hospital to a million patients

A single deep-learning tool for diabetic retinopathy went from one hospital to over a million patients screened across India, Thailand and Australia. The Nature Medicine paper, led by Google's Richa Tiwari, sets out what did and did not travel when the same model was pushed into three very different health systems.

The abstract calls it "scaling a successful deep learning tool across three highly distinct settings" in India, Thailand and Australia, and frames the resulting lessons as "cross-cutting insights that may inform the expansion of healthcare artificial intelligence globally."

The anchor sites on the author list are the Aravind Eye Care System in Madurai, Rajavithi Hospital in Bangkok, and Lions Outback Vision at the Lions Eye Institute in Nedlands. Google has said the same diabetic retinopathy model has "supported more than 600,000 screenings in clinics around the world" and is "licensed to Forus Health, AuroLab and Perceptra", with a stated goal of six million AI-supported screenings across India and Thailand over the next ten years.

The abstract publishes no per-site accuracy numbers. This is a lessons paper, not a fresh diagnostic-accuracy trial, and reads that way.