Exploring AI-led transformation in healthcare system in Sri Lanka

Nidesh Kulatunge

By Surya Vishwa

Last week we ran an interview in this page with a foreign Artificial Intelligence (AI) engineer who was amongst the first batch in the Western world to enrol in it as an academic discipline soon after AI was introduced to the world in 2021. Today we feature a discussion with a Sri Lankan born Australia based professional in the health sector who wishes to introduce to Sri Lanka an AI led integrated approach to boost medical tourism.

Nidesh Kulatunga began his academic career in accounting, completing a bachelor’s degree in Australia before undertaking further professional training in business analytics at RMIT University – Melbourne city campus. Through independent study and the development of applications, he had earned awards from state government health agencies leading to him being a project lead in the health sector. His current position is as Principal Business Analyst within a Clinical and Business Intelligence unit in Australia. This interview is published as part of the mass media endeavor of the Harmony page towards encouraging a sound integrated approach towards national policy discourse keeping the lived in interest of the people of the country.  

Q: Please introduce yourself and your work. 

A: I have been living in Australia for the past 13 years, and have been a lifelong technology enthusiast, which naturally shaped my career trajectory. Over the past five years I have worked across several layers of the Australian health system, starting at the federal level, then moving into injury compensation and workers’ rehabilitation/return to workspace. Thereafter I specialised in the state public health sector. My work has involved training staff, leading and delivering state-wide health projects, and helping design and implement software and data driven platforms that improve how services operate. These roles placed me at the intersection of policy, operations, and technology, allowing me to understand both the human side of healthcare and the technical capabilities that can truly elevate it. 

Q: What is it that you hope to introduce to Sri Lanka?

A: What I hope to introduce is a proposal for an integrated, AI-enabled health platform that can help both the public and private sectors evolve. Right now, many hospitals use different systems that operate in isolation, with no unified standards and no effective way to collect data across all large and small facilities. Because of this, the Government cannot make truly data-driven decisions for the health of the nation.

My goal is to change that. If we introduce a single platform that every hospital staff member can actually use in their day-to-day work, and we implement it properly, we can finally begin building AI models trained on real, national-level healthcare data. These models can help us predict, prevent, and manage health challenges in ways we have never been able to before.

Beyond the direct health benefits, I truly believe that this opens a bigger opportunity for Sri Lanka, to become an island of healing. 

Q: Are you speaking of Western Medical systems alone?

A: No. With a stronger digital backbone, we can build a world-class medical tourism sector and elevate Hela Wedakama, Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani to the global stage. When healthcare becomes a national strength, it lifts other sectors and supports the country’s overall development.

Q: How long of expertise have you had in AI and health tech? 

A: AI as a field has been evolving for decades, but the last three years have changed its pace entirely. I’ve worked with data for a while now, especially in health settings, but it’s only during the past two years that we’ve begun implementing real AI infrastructure and software at scale. This includes building the pipelines and environments needed for training models, integrating them with existing systems, and preparing organisations for AI-driven decision-making. While my foundation in data is long-standing, my hands-on experience with modern AI deployments, particularly in health sector, has grown significantly in the recent few years. 

Q: How can AI benefit SL? 

A: AI can help Sri Lanka unlock the true potential of every sector in Sri Lanka; healthcare, transport, agriculture, education, finance and tourism. By replacing old ways of working, and by finding a pathway for smarter decision making with real data and speed; AI can cut inefficiencies, uplift communities, and give the entire country a chance to leap forward instead of slowly catching up to the rest of the world.

Sri Lanka’s health system spans 25 districts and a wide network of National Hospitals, Teaching Hospitals, Provincial General Hospitals and Divisional Hospitals. Yet there is still no true unified digital system to manage health, hospital or pharmaceutical data. This means that many decisions, including how resources are allocated, are often made without the full picture. As an expat with experience in more digitally mature systems, I am trying to share this proposal with the current government, especially given their strong digitalisation agenda, on how technology, policy and practical workflows can be improved to support a modern, data-driven health sector. 

Q: Last week we ran an interview in this page of a British born, France-based AI engineer who focused on both the positive and negative impacts of AI. What was highlighted was that AI does make mistakes and is only around 90% accurate and that this should be kept in mind when used in the health sector. Could you elaborate? 

A: Yes, this is correct but AI is a realm that is here to stay and developing very fast and improving in accuracy. For Sri Lanka the opportunity lies not just in simply adopting technology for the sake of it, but in creating an ecosystem where the right data is captured at the right time, and is used to make better and faster decisions. AI in the healthcare should never replace clinical judgment, it should support it. The goal is not to rely on AI 100%, but to use it as a second set of eyes that helps staff make faster, more informed decisions, reduce errors, and ease administrative burdens. For Sri Lanka, the real opportunity is in building an ecosystem where the right data is captured, connected, and analysed consistently across all hospitals. With that foundation, predictive models can help the country anticipate medicine shortages, staffing gaps, operational bottlenecks, and even future disease trends.

This goes far beyond clinical care. With better data visibility, any government, present or future; can plan earlier, reduce unnecessary imports, strengthen local manufacturing and labour planning, and create a more resilient and sustainable national health system. AI is most powerful when used wisely, with good data and human oversight, and it can truly help Sri Lanka move from reactive decision-making to proactive leadership. 

Q: Could you elaborate what Sri Lanka’s real competitive advantage lies in using health for tourism?

A: Countries like Thailand, Singapore, and India already attract patients for elective and specialised surgeries because they offer high-quality care at cost lower than Western countries, and Sri Lanka can absolutely join that space too. This is exactly what our proposal to the current Sri Lankan government lays out; a practical blueprint for how the country can enter this space confidently and competitively.

However what truly sets us apart is something those countries don’t have: our ‘paramparika wedakama,’ Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani traditions. These systems have deep cultural value and global curiosity, even though sometimes they’ve been undervalued here at home.

So yes, we can compete in modern medical tourism, but our real differentiation comes from integrating and elevating our traditional healing systems. With proper digitalisation, safety standards, outcome tracking, and true practitioner support by including them in designing this system, Sri Lanka can offer something no other country can: a blend of credible Western care and authentic Sri Lankan healing.

This makes our medical sector offering stronger, more diverse, and genuinely unique.

Q: Most elite Sri Lankans, including politicians hop on a plane to Singapore or elsewhere whenever faced with their mortality. Do you think Sri Lanka can compete in the Western medical system in tourism with other regional countries?

A: Yes, we can. This is also a prime example of how countries like Singapore, Thailand, and India earn significant revenue from medical tourism, combining high-quality care with strong infrastructure. Again, it’s not that Sri Lanka lacks expertise, I think we have highly skilled clinicians and practitioners locally, but we currently don’t have the digital systems, infrastructure, and equipment in place to compete directly with these countries.

The right digital health system can change this. By capturing accurate data from hospitals across the country, we can better understand the real health needs of our population, identify gaps, and make informed decisions about where to invest in equipment, staff, and facilities. AI and integrated platforms can help us optimise resources, improve outcomes, and support clinical excellence.

Over time, we can attract high-paying, repeat tourists seeking ongoing care, elective procedures, rehabilitation, wellness services, and authentic traditional therapies. If we build a strong, data-driven health system here, none of us will need to go abroad for specialised care. Sri Lanka itself would be able to provide world-class treatment, combining modern medicine and heritage healing, while also generating sustainable economic growth for the country.

Q: Are you aware of the warnings of environment damage caused by AI?

A: Yes. Many researchers worldwide are concerned about the environmental downsides of AI. There are serious concerns that the rapid expansion of AI; datacentres, model training, heavy computation, consume huge amounts of energy and water, and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental stresses.

That said, I believe AI also offers us a chance to reduce waste and environmental impact. I’ll talk just about the health sector. For example, by using AI and digital health platforms, hospitals can optimise resource use: predicting demand for medicines, managing supply chains, reducing overstock and expiry waste, planning staffing and equipment needs precisely, and avoiding unnecessary procedures or duplicate diagnostics. This helps reduce waste, both material and operational, and lowers the environmental footprint of delivering care.

At the same time, there are many other factors affecting the environment. Leaving AI aside, the fact that telehealth has not been widely adopted in Sri Lanka means patients often travel long distances through traffic, burning fuel unnecessarily. We should give equal attention to these current inefficiencies and recognise the potential of digitalisation to reduce environmental impact. In this case, it means addressing the stigma around telehealth and remote care, educating patients, and making these services more accessible—a simple but powerful step towards greener healthcare.

So, in short, yes. The environmental risks of AI are real and must be taken seriously. But with the right experts who have experience in AI and health technology, in the long term Sri Lanka can build efficient, sustainable models that minimise energy use and optimise data management.