HIMS

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.

For years, we have been hearing of the inability of the Government and researchers to get adequate information on cancer in Jamaica.

Sure, a registry exists, but the information it contains is apparently only for Kingston and St Andrew. That, obviously, cannot be a sufficient representation of the reality in Jamaica.

With the ever-increasing incidence of non-communicable diseases including cancer, accurate data is important for the Government and others to determine the best interventions, especially given the limited resources that exist in the health sector.

ANYONE WHO has been sick and has had to take medicines for whatever reason knows that pharmaceuticals can be quite expensive.

The pharmaceutical industry worldwide is a US multibillion dollar one. Each year the Jamaican Government spends in excess of $8 billion to provide pharmaceuticals to public-sector patients through hospitals, health centres and the National Health Fund (NHF).

The matter of male fertility is generally taboo in the Jamaican context because we men take our sexual prowess quite seriously.

Yet we have considerably more 'jackets' than many other nations. But this is by no means just a Jamaican issue. According to scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, sperm counts among men in the West have more than halved in the past 40 years and are currently falling by an average of 1.4 per cent a year.

The transformative role of technology is boundless as long as we are willing to open our minds to the possibilities.

Health technology can be applied to almost every aspect of healthcare to improve efficiency and access.

I recently explained and referred to data as the 'new oil', and if we understand the true value of data and what it can do for health care then we would now know that there are boundless opportunities that we can carve out to improve service delivery, patient care and save lives.

Apart from tracking trends, deciphering where and when outbreaks may happen, medication being used by whom and in which geographic location, data provides a whole gamut of information we can use at a very personal level.

Many born into a generation of rapidly changing technology are able to seamlessly adapt to the almost per-second changes.

But there are many among us who do not quite have it so easily. Technophobia - the fear of technology - is real and is oftentimes seen in people afraid of using new technology.

With the pace of change, technology can, indeed, be very daunting. However, with the increased use of technology across sectors and many companies going digital, it is clear that technology is here to stay.