Rural doctors in Pu'an county, Guizhou province, are among the first village clinicians in the country to use an AI clinical assistant following skills training in February.

More than 40 village doctors from four townships joined the program, which taught them to use Ant Group's health-assistant AI for routine diagnosis and treatment.

County officials hope the effort will help reduce pressure on already stretched primary care services.

The training covered AI-supported Q&A, remote online consultations, test report interpretation, and electronic health record creation. Physicians from the Hospital of Chengdu University of TCM offered on-site guidance throughout the sessions.

Doctor Zhong Dan from Chengdu said the technology can lower the burden on village doctors and improve the accuracy of their diagnoses, according to news website The Paper.

Village doctors are the frontline of rural health care, often serving communities with a large proportion of elderly residents.

Of Pu'an's 174 village doctors, many are responsible for the health of anywhere from one to two thousand villagers.

Local authorities launched the AI training to address low health awareness among residents and an aging village doctor workforce. Wu Jun, deputy director of the county's health bureau, said additional AI training sessions will continue until every village doctor in the county is covered.