Need advice on digitizing hospital paper records into a RAG system (first large-scale project)
Hi everyone,
I recently got an opportunity to pitch an AI solution to a hospital. The interesting part is that most of their patient records are still stored as physical paper files. They haven't digitized much yet.
My idea is to eventually build a RAG-based assistant where doctors or hospital staff can ask questions like:
"Summarize this patient's medical history."
"Has this patient ever been diagnosed with diabetes?"
"What medications has this patient taken before?"
The challenge is that I've never worked on a project that starts with years of paper records. I've built RAG systems before, but not for something this large or in healthcare.
I'm trying to figure out how I should approach this. Should I first propose a digitization phase (scanning + OCR + structuring the data) and then build the RAG system? Or is there a better way to tackle it?
I'd also love to hear from anyone who's worked on hospital records or healthcare AI.
What would your architecture look like?
What were the biggest challenges?
Any mistakes you made that I should avoid?
Is this something that's realistic for a small team, or am I underestimating the effort?
Right now I'm preparing my proposal for the hospital, so I want to make sure I'm thinking about this the right way before I commit to anything.
I'd really appreciate any advice or experiences you can share. Thanks!