doug

COVID-19 has immensely changed the way we do things in almost every sector, healthcare included.

Humans are social beings and so it is understandably difficult to be isolated from others. Since the beginning of the pandemic, one of the biggest challenges faced by families is the inability to visit loved ones who are ill in hospital. It can be a very lonely journey if one is ill with little or no familial support, which could negatively affect recovery. There have been reports of mental health issues increasing during lockdown.

Saving time and moving efficiently at the first point of care at a hospital usually comes down to the ability to quickly and accurately triage.

Triaging refers to the categorising of people who seek care into most and least urgent and by the type of care they will need based on their complaints and symptoms. When we speak about waiting time at hospitals, it is usually at this stage that this has the most impact.

Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean have a virtually untapped resource in medical tourism. Of course, there are places that offer this, but the extent to which we could be benefitting from such an industry is massive and not truly being exploited.

Cybersecurity has been an important point of discussion for the last couple of years, and with good reason. As we continue to advance technologically, ways of intruding upon people’s privacy and compromising their online safety have also increased. Health institutions have to take particular care to prevent being compromised because patient data is highly sensitive and valuable.

We have been talking a lot about the digital future and the paradigm shift that has taken place in healthcare that sees us looking towards having technology as a major part of the system for the benefit of patients, caregivers and society at large. In fact, many strides have been made towards this in many countries, Jamaica included. We are now in the process of starting the groundwork for full digitisation of some of our public hospitals and health centres.

With the adoption of electronic medical records and full integration of technology in healthcare, related disciplines like health informatics grew in significance because of the role it could play in driving more modernised, focused and comprehensive care.

Health technology is becoming a more mainstream part of healthcare in many parts of the world, and locally we have started to make headway in the use of electronic forms of healthcare access and delivery. There is a lot that can be done with technology in the healthcare sector, but when we think of health technology, we often think of the medical and other patient-care functions that technology can make more efficient and accessible.

The rate of COVID-19 vaccination has not been as fast as we would like, despite the reality that we are facing with the recent introduction of the more infectious Delta variant, and now the Mu variant, into the island.

The question of who really owns patient data is still largely unsettled. Is it the physician who compiled it? Is it the institution in the case of the hospital or a practice with multiple doctors, or are the patients the owners of their information? This is largely the question that has been a barrier to sharing patient records.

I find it quite commendable that the Government is now actively moving towards digitising healthcare. This is the direction in which the world is going, some faster than others, and certainly the direction in which this country must go. The COVID-19 pandemic, if nothing else, has shown us how health events and an unhealthy population can have significant negative impact on productivity and life as a whole.