Gleaner

The world is beginning to embrace health technology in a big way. So much so that the global care solutions market has expanded and is projected to continue to experience immense growth.

According to researchandmarkets.com, in 2021, the value of the global care management solutions market was estimated to be $13.2 billion. It is estimated that it will have a compound annual growth rate of about 13.3 per cent and, therefore, should be valued at approximately $27.9 billion by 2027.

In healthcare, the ability to diagnose early can be the difference between life and death or lifelong ill-health and costly medical care. Many times, ailments such as non-communicable diseases (NCDs), especially cancers, can be better treated if they were detected early. Cancer is still among the top-10 causes of mortality in Jamaica and several NCDs fill out the rest of that list. Early diagnosis is key in many instances to prevent death or disability.

One of the best uses of technology in healthcare has been to facilitate the possibility of the connection of a holistic healthcare network that includes all services and caregivers and that has no geographic limitations. A truly connected system goes beyond hospital care to incorporate full patient care wherever that patient may be – at home or anywhere in the world.

A refusal to accept change is one of the primary reasons why projects tend to fail, or not proceed in the manner intended by project managers and transformation teams. In the digital age, a major aspect of change is moving from analogue, or paper-based, systems to digital ones throughout an organisation.

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.

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.

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.

Life in the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us many lessons and ways to continue business and other aspects of life despite restrictions that prevented much physical interaction. Every aspect of life was affected, and some still continue to be.