TakeCare+
AI Thinking Partner for Safer Healthcare

India has one of the most heavily burdened medical workforces in the world. Estimates of the national doctor–patient ratio range from 1:834 to 1:1700. At face value, these numbers may not appear alarming, but national averages obscure the underlying inequities.

The central issue is distribution. Physicians are concentrated in urban centers, while rural regions remain severely underserved. Studies indicate an urban-to-rural disparity of nearly 4:1. In Jharkhand, for example, approximately 10,000 physicians are responsible for a population of more than 32 million.

This imbalance produces unmanageable patient queues and excessively long shifts. Physicians frequently skip meals, compromise on best practices, and push themselves beyond safe limits simply to meet demand. The cumulative toll on health is severe: in India, physicians on average die nearly ten years earlier than the general population, underscoring the unsustainability of current workloads.

The consequences extend beyond physician well-being. Fatigue is strongly correlated with error rates, with exhausted doctors being twice as likely to make mistakes. India records an estimated 5.2 million medication errors annually, contributing to hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths.

The operational realities within Tier-2 and Tier-3 clinics illustrate the structural fragility of care delivery. Electronic medical records are rare. Diagnoses and prescriptions are typically handwritten on slips of paper, leaving no durable record and little continuity of care. Consultations often last only three to seven minutes in order to manage patient volume. Critical questions are left unasked. Allergies and past histories are confirmed verbally, if at all. Patients provide fragmented recollections. Prescriptions, written hastily, are handed to chemists who must interpret the handwriting before dispensing medication, a process that is accurate in some cases but dangerously flawed in others.

Despite this, official data on adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in India does not reflect the true scale of the problem. This is not due to lower incidence but rather to chronic under-reporting. India's ADR reporting rate is estimated at less than 1%, compared to a global average of approximately 5%. This does not indicate fewer ADRs, but rather highlights significant under-reporting and the absence of systematic pharmacovigilance, especially in overburdened, resource-constrained settings.

The intuitive fix is digitization. Replace paper with software. In practice, most systems slow doctors down. They add clicks and fields that consume the few minutes available for each visit. Many physicians who tried these platforms returned to pen and paper because the software made care less efficient.

Transcription tools help capture conversations but are often built for English-first, Tier-1 hospitals. They break in multilingual, code-switched clinics where doctors and patients move between Hindi, English, and regional languages in a single visit. Even when transcription works, it addresses only part of the problem. It can reduce errors of commission such as documenting the wrong dose or confusing two drugs. It does not address errors of omission such as the question never asked, the test never ordered, or the guideline not recalled. A transcript captures what was said. It cannot prompt what was not.

TakeCare+ is a multilingual, ambient AI thinking partner. It helps physicians generate structured electronic medical records and supports diagnostic and prescribing decisions with reference to medical history, geographic trends, and current evidence. It is designed to mitigate errors of omission by identifying gaps in clinical reasoning and providing an additional safeguard for both physicians and patients.

• Highlights follow-ups that should be pursued: "Travel history?" during fever season.
• Recalls important past details: "Avoid NSAIDs, gastrointestinal intolerance noted."
• Brings local epidemiology into the room: "Dengue cases are increasing in this district. Consider NS1 testing."
• Grounds each suggestion in evidence so the physician understands both the recommendation and the rationale.

The value is not limited to faster documentation. The value is clearer thinking under pressure and fewer preventable errors.

1. Advances in model maturity: Recent progress in ASR and LLMs enables reliable transcription and interpretation of noisy, multilingual clinical conversations with medical lexicons.
2. Digital health infrastructure: ABDM provides a national framework for interoperable records. Structured notes can flow and integrate across institutions.
3. Clinical openness: A new generation of physicians seeks low-friction tools that reduce administrative burden, mitigate burnout, and add safety.

The technology is ready, the rails are in place, and the need is urgent.

TakeCare+ was selected for the Ashoka University Summer Incubation Program in 2025 and has progressed from concept to early validation. We engaged physicians across specialties and geographies to understand needs, workflows, and adoption barriers. We mapped patient journeys to locate the breaks in continuity of care in Tier-2 and Tier-3 settings. We developed segmentation frameworks for clinics, hospital networks, and medical colleges with an emphasis on under-resourced contexts.

A proof-of-concept prototype is in development. It focuses on multilingual transcription, structured documentation, and first-pass safety checks such as drug–drug interactions, dosage validation, and allergy conflicts. The next stage is to complete the prototype and initiate pilot deployments with early adopters to evaluate technical accuracy and the impact of real-time prompts on reducing errors of omission.

This project is inspired by OpenEvidence and Abridge. The aim is a healthcare system where doctors are not forced to choose between speed and safety, and where every patient can expect proper, safe, and thoughtful care. From international hospitals in Tier-1 cities to modest clinics in Tier-3 towns, the goal is to raise the baseline of medical practice so that access to reliable care is not determined by geography or income.

The challenge is significant. It is also solvable.