INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Digital Healthcare Transformation and Innovation Optimising knowledge flow
COVID-19 has accelerated the pace of healthcare innovation and potentially extended how medical care is delivered. While these solutions hold incredible promises, we are adding more variables to variation in care. The future of healthcare should be driven by knowledge to deliver optimal care with patient safety and quality considerations. Ian Chuang, Chief Medical Officer, Elsevier
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nnovation in digital health has become a by-product of our collective healthcare experience through the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the onset of the pandemic, we have seen an explosion in innovation in the digital health space. Many countries in Asia, including China, Singapore, and Australia, were the first to experiment and roll out contact tracing mobile applications to step up preventive measures . In some regions, including South Korea, the government has also temporarily relaxed restrictions on telemedicine consultations to allow physicians to conduct remote diagnosis and monitoring . More recently, experts are racing to deploy other digital solutions to flatten the curve and recalibrate societies back to normal. What is more likely to be true is the realignment towards a new reality. While these new solutions and technologies hold incredible promise, there are potential quality and safety considerations that need to be thoroughly
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A SI A N H O S P I T A L & H EA LT HCAR E M A N AGE M E N T
examined. It is equally important to consider the impact and optimisation of the user experience, for both clinicians and patients. Fragmentation of different innovation solutions
Patients, clinicians, and health system funders realised that the old model of healthcare did not hold up well to the
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challenges and continuing evolving needs introduced by COVID-19. Technologists and entrepreneurs do what they do best; their creative and enterprising minds think of ways in which technology can address the myriad of challenges and barriers that have been identified. Find and identify the problem; solve it is the mantra. Telemedicine will solve the access
