Remote

With the growth of telehealth, the remote care technology market has boomed as people begin to demand – and doctors begin to see the benefits of – more patient involvement in their care.

Remote care technology has been touted as an essential part of the digital healthcare revolution and I agree that they complete the ecosystem within which patient care becomes the focus. It allows patients to keep track of their health and recovery and doctors to track patients’ progress or provide convalescent care away from a healthcare facility.

A new and popular wave of technology used in healthcare in the last decade or so is personal remote-care devices such as fitness trackers. This started an increase in the development of wellness apps and more involvement by persons in their health and well-being.

Continuing education is very important in the field of medicine. The medical professional is usually hard-pressed to find the time to dedicate to face-to-face sessions and may therefore appreciate a mix of options. Surely, there are instances where courses can be completed online. However, there is need for more of these, especially now that face-to-face interaction has been largely restricted and events have mostly been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The world over is dealing with the issue of ageing populations where the number of persons over 55 is steadily increasing while the number of children born to families reduces.

More persons are deciding to have one child or, maximum, two. Jamaica’s birthrate, for example, is approximately 2.01 per family while people are living longer due to advances in technology and improved health services. Living longer, however, does not necessarily equate to living healthier or having a better quality of life. Healthcare will be forced to catch up to this phenomenon.

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.

Earlier this year, I wrote an article about computer vision and how it can positively impact healthcare.

This kind of artificial intelligence (AI) is already a feature of health technology and is used to aid in diagnosis and treatment. AI research in health has been happening for years with spinal stimulation and brain computer interface.

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.

I have always been fascinated by technology, so although I started my career as an accountant, I was pulled to the technology sphere where I managed to introduce industry-changing technology initiatives in banking, finance and health.

I have seen the positives that technology can have on individuals and entire sectors. This is a part of the reason I make it a point to attend the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference each year to see the new and emerging technologies in health.

Last week, I attended the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, which showcases the best of breed in health and supporting technology.

New, improved and emerging technology was on show and it was good to know that my vision for health technology is safely imbued in what is out there to support it.

There were hundreds of booths and I strategically made my way around those I thought could bring the most value to what we are doing, and plan to do, in Jamaica.

Universal access to health has been the buzz phrase for a few years now. When we think of this concept, we tend to think mostly of financial access, but it is much more than that.

Our system is currently skewed to providing financial access to health, which, in itself, is very important as it can be a great barrier to health-seeking behaviour.

We have been tackling the financial barrier with the no-user-fees policy and moved even further along with the recent signing of the consultancy agreement to begin work on the National Health Insurance Plan.