Accelerating public healthcare innovation

MEDICAL TRAVEL IN ASIA REBOUNDING: IHH

ASIA

Demand for medical tourism is starting to rebound and will grow beyond pre-pandemic levels as border restrictions ease, according to IHH Healthcare.

In an interview with Nikkei Asia, CEO Kelvin Loh said vaccination programmes progressing and borders reopening across Asia will make international patients return, and demand for medical tourism will surpass pre-pandemic levels in the longer term. He added that border controls introduced by several countries to combat COVID-19 have dampened medical tourism.

The hospital group highlighted returning patients in various countries. In Turkey, where IHH earned 16% of its revenue from medical tourism, patient numbers returned to normal within a month or two after the country reopened its borders. In Singapore, the company’s hospitals received hundreds of bookings within a week of the city-state extending its quarantine-free entry scheme to Indonesia in late 2021. Before COVID, a quarter of IHH’s total inpatient revenue in Singapore was from international patients.

Asia’s economic growth

The underlying dynamic for medical travel in Asia is the region’s economic growth. Economic development tends to outpace the rate of medical development in certain countries, so anyone who wants and can afford something that they cannot find locally will go abroad to get it. Healthcare in neighbouring countries, such as Indonesia, is improving but is not yet to the point where it takes away the necessity or desire for medical travel by those with the means to pay for it.

Amongst other key strategies to tap growing medical demand will be investments in technology, such as artificial intelligence that could improve the speed and accuracy of care.

Governments and healthcare organisations must build on the momentum of the rapid digitalisation during the pandemic

Accelerating public healthcare innovation

ASIA

Think tank ACCESS Health International, in collaboration with AWS Institute from Amazon Web Services (AWS), announced a new report titled Overcoming Barriers to Cloud Adoption in Public Healthcare in the Asia-Pacific. The research shows that policymakers and healthcare leaders have an incredible opportunity to unleash further innovation in the healthcare industry.

ACCESS Health International Senior Consultant Simeen Mirza said, “Rapid digitalisation during the pandemic has brought about remarkable advances in disease surveillance, telemedicine, and vaccine rollout. To unlock the full potential of digital health, now is an opportune time for governments and healthcare organisations to build on this momentum and take immediate action to solve the pressing challenges that are facing public healthcare today.”

“We encourage policymakers and healthcare leaders to make digital transformation on healthcare a priority, so as to reduce costs, improve outcomes, ensure equity of access to healthcare, and accelerate progress

Simeen Mirza

Quint Simon

We encourage policymakers and healthcare leaders to make digital healthcare a priority

towards sustainable development goals. Policymakers can propel wider cloud adoption and unleash even greater innovation by implementing riskbased digital policies like clear Cloud First policies that apply to healthcare, training workers in cloud skills, and collaborating with the private sector to leverage the full spectrum of cloud capabilities for the good of all citizens,” added AWS APJ head of public policy Quint Simon.

Establishing clarity in healthcare data governance and a cloud-first policy

Where there are existing government cloud-first policies, it should be explicitly stated that these also cover healthcare data workloads. A central digital health authority that prioritises using cloud-based technology solutions over other IT solutions can provide a clear transformation roadmap that allows healthcare organisations to optimise infrastructure costs and access scalable IT resources whilst building a connected healthcare ecosystem. A great example of this comes from the UK National Health Service Digital.

Closing the digital skills gap in the healthcare sector

To enable transformative innovation across the healthcare sector, governments need to work with industry to implement educational programs and training to upskill the workforce and to design and build human-centric digital health applications. To accelerate the digitisation drive, governments should empower a designated body to boost capacity building and drive digital initiatives in partnership with the private sector. Training in cloud technology can also improve organisational efficiency.

Understanding the benefits and security capabilities of the cloud

Research respondents in the report also shared that due to a lack of awareness or understanding of the cloud technology, policymakers and healthcare leaders have misconceptions around security and the privacy of cloud-based data. The cloud is secure and can open up opportunities for digital transformation for healthcare systems in Asia Pacific and Japan.

Delivering hope amidst crisis through unparalleled logistics expertise

Moving aid to where it is needed most is crucial to address the healthcare needs of the world’s underprivileged. By Audrey Cheong, regional vice president, Southeast Asia, FedEx Express

When the 7.2-magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti in August 2021, close to a million people were left in dire need of humanitarian assistance. The quake took a particular toll on the country’s already struggling healthcare system, with ill-equipped hospitals unable to accommodate thousands of injured patients.

Relief organisations swiftly mobilised to provide aid. This was easier said than done. Much of the damage occurred far from Port-au-Prince, the capital, away from roads and airports. Still, in less than a fortnight, the International Medical Corps had established a fully functional emergency field response hospital in the hard-hit southwestern town of Aquin through dedicated chartered flights. The field hospital functioned as a self-sufficient outpatient health facility with trained staff, supplies, and equipment needed to provide a wide range of medical services.1 About 79 tonnes of critical medical supplies were also shipped by FedEx to the worst-affected areas through another chartered flight loaded with $8million worth of prescription medications, IV solutions, emergency medical backpacks, and other supplies.2

Behind the smooth operations was a robust logistics system capable of addressing the need for humanitarian aid under intense pressure. This is just one example of how logistics plays a critical role in delivering aid and hope to vulnerable communities around the globe.

Bridging the gap In times of crisis, if humanitarian aid serves as a critical lifeline for millions of people worldwide, then the logistics service could be an invisible vein that connects the movement of relief supplies with people in need.

The most promising developments in the overland movement were helicopters and vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft, along with techniques of rapid airfield construction, which enabled streamlined airmobile forces and their logistic tails to overleap terrain obstacles and significantly reduced their dependence on roads, airfields, and forward bases. Since then, humanitarian aid has saved multiple lives at a faster speed.

Over the past two and a half years, however,

FedEx delivered COVID-19 vaccines and antigen test kits to communities

FedEx is committed to continue leveraging its global network, leading healthcare delivery solutions and decades of expertise to help deliver more mission-critical aid to communities the health and economic shocks of COVID-19 of tonnes of medical supplies and aid into the have further exacerbated the need for moving country. When Vietnam and South Korea were aid across the world. Even countries with battling the surge of the Delta variant last fewer reported cases have still experienced year, FedEx was at the forefront, delivering severe impacts on livelihoods, household hundreds of thousands of COVID-19 vaccines income, poverty, and food security. In many and antigen test kits to communities where countries, the pandemic has also further these were needed the most. constrained access to medical care for To date, FedEx has collectively delivered maternal and child health. approximately 14,000 COVID-19 related humanitarian relief shipments through Moving beyond the pandemic close collaboration with governments and In 2022, an estimated 291.3 million people healthcare organisations worldwide. This will need humanitarian assistance and demonstrates how the private sector could protection - a significant increase from 235 be an important ally to the collective cause, million people just a year ago,3 which was mobilising resources and strengthening already the highest figure in decades. The emergency preparedness and recovery. need for humanitarian aid is keenly felt across With Omicron raging worldwide and the Asia Pacific region, which is home to one- complex geopolitical shifts, greater quarter of the world’s conflicts and several collaboration is needed to include the private protracted crises.4 sector in humanitarian coordination system.

Even as the COVID-19 situation eases, Delivering humanitarian aid is about igniting many countries across Asia still struggle hope and sharing support. FedEx has set an to procure vaccines and other supplies. An ambitious goal of creating positive impact to equitable vaccine rollout is the ideal, and 50 million people around the world by 2023,5 developing countries need support in vaccine and is committed to continue leveraging procurement and life-saving medical supplies. its global network, leading healthcare

For example, whilst India was in the grips delivery solutions and decades of expertise of a crippling COVID-19 resurge back in June to help deliver more mission-critical aid to 2021, logistics services providers such as communities. FedEx, donated three dedicated chartered Learn more about how FedEx supports flights to deliver tens of thousands of critically humanitarian aid and the healthcare industry needed oxygen concentrators, and hundreds on FedEx Business Insights.

1https://internationalmedicalcorps.org/story/finding-hope-in-hard- hit-haiti/ 2https://newsroom.fedex.com/newsroom/fedex-working-with-relief-agencies-to-deliver-critical-aid-to-haiti/ 3https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-humanitarian-overview-2022-february-update 4https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Global%20Humanitarian%20Overview%202022.pdf 5https://fedexcares.com/50-by-50