The future of digital healthcare - Preparedness in Asia-Pacific and Thailand amid today’s Covid-19 pandemic

The future of digital healthcare - Preparedness in Asia-Pacific and Thailand amid today’s Covid-19 pandemic

Since COVID-19 has speeded up the adoption of digital technologies by several years and has galvanised health systems across the globe to change the way they operate.

Roche Diagnostics Asia Pacific recently organised an international forum entitled Diagram Media Forum—World Editor’s Forum. The forum was arranged to discuss today’s digital health policy readiness in Asia-pacific, particularly in Thailand and how regulators and innovators can keep up with this change as a sustainable approach, rather than taking ad-hoc measures. At the forefront of this change is how digital tools can be leveraged to provide enhanced, personalised care for patients. 

“According to the Asia Pacific Digital Health Policy Readiness overview, Thailand saw increased deployment of tech devices to enable early-stage interventions that can improve health as well as healthcare delivery by enhancing effectiveness, efficiency, accessibility, safety and personalisation. However, such technologies must be integrated as part of a sustainable approach, instead of as interim solutions. The pandemic has clearly shown us that digital health policy readiness at a national level demands urgent attention as future pandemic readiness is assessed. Not only can this yield economic benefit, with digital technologies reported to reduce healthcare costs, but it can support health system transformation,” said Pichetpong Srisuwankul, Managing Director of Roche Diagnostics (Thailand) Limited.

The recent HIMSS Insights: APAC Digital Health Trendbarometer Report 2021, in partnership with Roche provides some key findings for the APAC region. It shows that while the pandemic placed a significant strain on health systems worldwide, it is also important to highlight the boons it brought as a result. In terms of economic gain, digital technology is reported to reduce healthcare costs by 7-11%. In terms of patient-centric care, its increase in telemedicine and e-health enables easy and accurate diagnosis of health and diseases. Moreover, deployment of tech devices in real-time can enable interventions at an early stage, improving healthcare outcomes. In terms of better use of resources, digital health interventions have enormous potential with scalable tools that improve health and healthcare delivery by enhancing effectiveness, efficiency, accessibility, safety and personalisation. Plus, an alternative to more labour-intensive models of care, the adoption of digital technologies is expected to reduce the strain on healthcare professionals.

“Healthcare of the future demands disruptive innovations and advanced technologies that expand beyond the walls of care to deliver an enhanced experience for both providers and receivers of care. Siriraj Hospital is an exceptional example confirming that the creation of a digitally-enabled ecosystem requires a strong policy framework to ensure that such data lives in an integrated, interoperable environment,” Pichetpong Srisuwankul added.

Siriraj Hospital, the largest tertiary and quaternary care hospital in Thailand, is one player leading this transition in healthcare delivery. Faced with over 3.8 million outpatient and 80,000 inpatient visits a year, the state hospital used to have to deal with the traditional headaches experienced by healthcare institutions: long patient waiting times, overcrowding and complex care pathways. An evolution in thinking was desperately needed.

“To improve hospital efficiency, we need right management framework. One is to have a design thinking process to truly understand patient needs and issues so that we can identify waste and value in the system from the customer’s perspective. We then implement the lean principle to eliminate waste and provide more value to patients. With a value-driven mind set, disruptive innovation technologies such as 5G, Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud, AI and mobile technology can redesign the way we deliver care to patients and achieve more efficiency,” says Associate Professor Dr. Cherdchai Nopmaneejumruslers, Vice Director of Siriraj Hospital. 

Among these innovations is Siriraj Connect — a mobile app which enables patients to get the most out of Siriraj’s services while reducing waiting time within the hospital. First introduced in 2019, the app provides visitors with personalised features. Patients can use it to re-schedule, track, register and confirm their medical appointments. They can also monitor their blood collection, medical appointments and medicine collection queues, as well as utilising telemedicine and making online payments through the mobile application.      

According to Dr. Cherdchai Nopmaneejumruslers, continuous flow is another tenet of the lean principle. “It means we have to ensure value flows towards the patient without interruption. According to the key features of the mobile application, it helps control the number of inflow patients, balancing patient outflow with the number of clinicians available (workload levelling). By improving continuous flow, this cuts out bottlenecks and reduces waiting times for patients.” 

As the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, this app allows patients, especially the elderly, to cut the number of visits to Siriraj and the amount of time they stay at the hospital for medical appointments. Using the app’s remote monitoring system, doctors are able to observe the patient’s health condition or call them via a video chat to answer medication questions following discharge from hospital. 

Driven by an ageing demographic and rising healthcare costs, the value of the MedTech industry in Asia Pacific is expected to reach $157 billion by 2022.

“Over the next 10 years, healthcare costs in countries like Thailand will increase due to the ageing population. More than ever the goal going forward is to provide value-based healthcare using big data and AI algorithms to predict and provide personalised healthcare services and tele-health to reduce unnecessary hospital visits.” 

For more information please visit: https://rochediagram.com/mediaforum/2021 


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