technology

When I heard the announcement from the National Health Fund (NHF) late last year that the agency would be moving towards putting things in place for the development of a National Health Insurance Plan (NHIP) I was a little sceptical.

After all, administration after administration had said this very same thing but nothing ever came to fruition.

I was heartened when I recently saw that the NHF requested submissions for a consultant to examine and begin the process.

If, as a country, we are serious about improving the health of our population, there has to be a focus on technology-driven health literacy and access.

Technology can significantly enhance and promote health literacy, leading to improved behaviour necessary for better health outcomes.

With the growing use of the Internet by Jamaicans, wider cell phone usage and availability of affordable data plans, we have a real opportunity here.

The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) is embracing the use of technology to enhance patient care delivery which, along with several other infrastructural developments, is to propel the hospital into a first-class facility. Officials of the St Andrew-based hospital, speaking during a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the newspaper's North Street offices in Kingston last week, said improved technology is coming for the hospital to ensure that it can efficiently meet the needs to the public.

Last week, my company was involved in the Medical Association of Jamaica's (MAJ) annual symposium, which allowed businesses in the field of health care to display their latest product offerings.

I was pleased to see a few involved in health technology like myself. It tells me that the market is really changing as we are beginning to embrace technology more and more and understanding its importance to the health-care business.

When I heard about the sudden death of Acting Commissioner of Police Winchroy Budhoo, I immediately thought of all the good members of the security forces who continue to make tremendous sacrifice to protect and serve us.

The following week there was a report that a correctional officer allegedly shot and stabbed his wife during a domestic dispute.

Let's be real, to be part of the law-enforcement team in this country means a tremendous amount of stress.

A Jamaican technology platform, developed by Advanced Integrated Systems, (AIS), is currently being marketed in India and expectation is that its use in that country may bring millions in revenue to Jamaica. 

The Caribbean’s leading health technology company, Advanced Integrated Systems (AIS) aims to improve the quality of healthcare through telemedicine.

AIS have already rolled out technology that will transform Jamaica into a country with the most comprehensive health information database, making telemedicine an easy transition. Telemedicine is the use of telecommunication and information technology to provide clinical health care from a distance.

Mobile money has been hailed as a possible solution to the problem of financial inclusion and can be a solution to many challenges, such as money laundering and praedial larceny.

But mobile money also fits in very well with health technology as it can enable the use of, and broaden access to, several health-care services that would not otherwise be available to many persons.

The first thing we have to make clear is that mobile money is not a generic term.

A few weeks ago, I attended the annual Health Information Management Systems Conference in Orlando, Florida (HIMSS17).

This was my second year, and apart from my company being the only Jamaican company represented among hundreds of the best technology companies in the world, I was quite excited when I visited the various booths and saw the very impressive offerings.

Health is by far one of the most important assets we can have as individuals. If we do not have good health, we pretty much have nothing.

Mahatma Gandhi rightfully stated, "It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver."

The prevalence of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, and the effect they have had on the population not just in Jamaica but worldwide, signals to us that we need a revolution in health to arrest this problem.