The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has resulted in many opportunities for the health technology industry. Our usually technophobic population has been embracing technology more and more since the start of the restrictions due to the spread of COVID-19. This is understandable since people have been advised to shelter in place and remain quarantined if they have symptoms of the illness. They have to somehow access healthcare while at home.
Technology has been changing the way we do things in the healthcare industry for years. Every year there are more and more innovations intended to improve care as well as various processes. Digitised healthcare has proven to be tremendously beneficial for patients and healthcare providers. It has eliminated the barriers of time and space and allowed for increased access. Telemedicine is also poised to revolutionise care and will be central to the digital health revolution.
Not many Caribbean islands have invested in digitised healthcare. The information on this is scanty at best. There are, of course, private health facilities that have been using technology as part of healthcare management for years, but from a national perspective, nothing much has been happening on that front. Jamaica is not the only country in this hemisphere lagging behind. I believe Barbados is among the very few in the Caribbean region that has truly taken on digital transformation of healthcare and has been acting on it at an acceptable pace.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two technologies that are drastically changing the approach to healthcare management and delivery. These technologies were adopted from other sectors and have been successfully applied to hospital management, diagnosis, treatment and care across several health disciplines.
Jamaica is no stranger to electronic dispensing of prescriptions. The National Health Fund has put in place a Pharmacy Information Management System in their Drug Serv pharmacies, including those at several public hospitals across the island. The University of the West Indies is very far ahead in completely implementing their Hospital Information Management System and, within that, the pharmacy module, which is already in use and allows for the ability to digitally conduct all pharmacy-related activities from prescribing to dispensing and between that inventory and stock management.
The thought of having to go to a hospital, let alone a public one, would have many people opting to stay home as long as possible until their ailment turns into an emergency. In some ways, we face this reality here. There is a plethora of complaints – the waiting time is too long, customer service is not up to par, doctors are not available, dockets cannot be found, difficulty in finding beds or the tier system for triaging may not be efficient or effective enough.
Most medical office management systems include online patient scheduling, and with the increasing number of telemedicine platforms, soon this will become a preferred choice for patients.
Implantable devices are not a new concept in healthcare. For decades, people have been kept alive by devices like pacemakers that assist the heart to function, for example, and orthopaedic devices that assist in fusing bones and joints displaced through injury. However, recent developments in the technology sphere have led to the increase and improvement in the types of implantable devices available in healthcare and generally.
BIOMARKERS HAVE long been used in healthcare as a diagnostic and treatment aid. In addition, biomarkers such as those used to determine the probability of disease presence or development based on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) have been used as a means of taking preventive action, by predicting disease progression and possible response to treatment. In this way, a treatment model can be developed for the patient even before symptoms begin.
In the past few years, a number of telemedicine vendors have entered the local market. This is a good indication that we are moving forward and evolving to incorporate digital health into the healthcare ecosystem. We still have a little way to go but we are on the right track.
