Mumbai Healthcare Update: BMC Explores Speech-To-Text AI For Doctor-Patient Consultations As Next Phase Of Hospital Digitisation

Mumbai, September 8, 2026: Doctors in BMC hospitals may soon spend less time typing and more time attending to patients, with the civic administration exploring AI-based speech-to-text technology that can convert doctor-patient conversations into digital medical records.

The proposed technology is being considered as the next phase of the BMC’s Hospital Management Information System (HMIS), which is being rolled out across civic hospitals with the aim of making hospital services paperless and reducing waiting time.

Prajakta Lavangre Varma, Additional Municipal Commissioner (City), who holds charge of the civic health department, said the technology could automatically convert conversations during consultations into text and incorporate them into a patient’s digital medical record.

“The doctor should not have to type everything. Whatever is spoken during the consultation can get automatically translated into text and become a record,” Varma said.

AI To Support Consultations

Lavangre Varma on Monday visited Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital (Sion Hospital) to review the implementation of HMIS, which has commenced at the hospital. She said speech-to-text AI technology would be the next phase of HMIS.

However, implementing such a system in busy government hospitals could be challenging, she said, as doctors attend multiple patients and consultations often take place amid considerable background noise. The BMC has signed an MoU with Fractal, an IT firm, to explore technological solutions to these challenges.

HMIS Expansion Underway

Meanwhile, the civic body is expanding HMIS to digitise various hospital services. The system is currently operational at the OPD level at Sion Hospital and will gradually be strengthened and introduced across other BMC hospitals.

Under the expanded system, OPD registration, consultations, prescriptions, diagnostic investigations and payments for services such as CT and MRI scans will gradually move online.

Patients will also have digital health records, enabling repeat visitors to access their records without registering from scratch and reducing the need to carry paper documents.

The BMC is also working to integrate Aadhaar, ABHA and Ayushman Bharat-linked services with HMIS. Online payment facilities will be expanded through multiple counters to reduce queues.

Digital Birth Death Certificates

Alongside hospital digitisation, the civic administration is introducing an SMS-based system for birth and death certificates. Applicants will receive a unique application number through SMS and another alert once the certificate is ready for collection at a Citizen Facilitation Centre.

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Varma said the BMC was confident of bringing all its hospitals under HMIS, calling digitisation an important step towards making civic healthcare more efficient, paperless and citizen-friendly.

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