The long wait for non-emergency healthcare, both privately and publicly, can be frustrating. Such is the extent of the problem that, some years ago, the Ministry of Health began to focus specific interventions on reducing waiting times at public-health facilities. Still, waiting time remains a problem, which I don’t believe we will be able to effectively tackle without the help of technology.
Jamaica began its hospital digitisation journey less than a decade ago with the University Hospital of the West Indies. At that time, they saw the economic and efficiency benefits of such a move. Increasingly, more hospitals worldwide have been on a similar journey, and the ones that have gone fully digital have been investing more to improve how they offer services to patients and other clients.
The current COVID-19 vaccination distribution programme had me thinking about the best ways to quickly identify segments of the population that could be most at risk, not just for COVID, but for any health issue that may come up and that we have to address nationally. We speak a lot about the social determinants of health, and now we can apply them to our healthcare planning, with technology, to get a better sense of the state and needs of the population and how we can address them with specific interventions.
There are many telehealth services, platforms, and devices on the market today. Yet, telehealth can still be considered to be in its infancy.
We’ve always heard about how important it is to have a good night’s sleep to allow the body, especially our brain, to rest. Sleep has a lot to do with how healthy we are.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Good quality sleep is essential for good health and well-being. However, lifestyle and environmental factors are increasingly causing difficulties in sleeping. Sleep disturbance is frequently considered the most serious consequence of environmental noise.
Hospital admissions for Jamaica have been traditionally high, especially with the level of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) among our population. Often, there is a bottleneck in accident and emergency departments, with patients sleeping in chairs and, in some cases, in stretchers, as they wait for an available bed to be identified. This is a major issue for us because our hospitals are always operating at peak levels, especially in the accident and emergency departments.
In any organisation, large or small, how quickly and efficiently departments can communicate with each other can directly impact how well that organisation performs. Already, we rely a lot on technology to operate businesses and to get work done but largely this is treated as a ‘matter of fact’ phenomenon.
Healthcare is a demanding job and with a pandemic added, it becomes even more so, with many working more hours than they normally would have. This, along with several other factors, can lead to burnout.
COVID-19 has shed light on the importance of having a connected health network to be able to more efficiently coordinate supplies and equipment across health sector facilities.
The difficulty in sourcing and distributing essential items and equipment that was experienced in some countries at the beginning of the spread of the virus was a call for a closer examination of the technology systems in health that can facilitate better information transfer and management.
The announcement that a vaccine for COVID-19 is ready is one that has brought much relief to many persons around the world. Vaccines have, for decades, been one of the best tools to prevent certain diseases.
Since Jamaica began its vaccine programme, the country has been successful in eliminating or significantly reducing the occurrence of certain vaccine-preventable diseases. Vaccines work, and there is no doubt about that. We have made remarkable progress and our vaccine programme has consistently attained high percentages in terms of the number of persons who are vaccinated.
