The novel coronavirus outbreak exposed the vulnerabilities of healthcare systems across the globe. With thousands of newly infected people reported each day, hospitals are struggling with a lack of personnel and resources to fight the pandemic. In Bergamo, Italy, the situation is so serious, that doctors are forced to lower their patient care standards. To make things worse, the disease is spreading to healthcare workers and hospitals become the sources of contamination.
Although Italy has world-class healthcare, the pandemic has brought in to the verge of a breakdown. As COVID-19 spreads in the US, the country starts to face the shortcomings of its healthcare system:
– Lack of resources – staff, medical masks, intensive care units (ICU), lung ventilation machines, etc.
– High costs of medical services – as a result, people with COVID-19 symptoms are not turning to the doctors because they can’t afford to pay medical bills.
– Lack of access to tests – thus, the real number of infected people is difficult to detect.
– No access to a vaccine yet, – although its clinical testing is currently underway, we have to wait 18 months until it becomes publicly available.
Clearly, the world is facing the pandemic unprepared. Today, there’s hardly any world region unaffected by the novel coronavirus. Except for, maybe, a small island state in the Pacific Ocean, about 100 miles away from China – Taiwan.
Stemming The Pandemic: Success Stories
As of March 10, Taiwan had only 45 cases of COVID-19, and it’s not due to the lack of coronavirus tests. So far, the country has the best disease containment results in the world. Somehow, they have managed to crush the pandemic in the bud despite the only 81-mile distance from mainland China – the reported source of the fast-spreading infection.
So is there anything we can learn from Taiwan?
Social distancing, travel bans, and quarantines are just some of the measures that the country has been implementing since as early as January 21, 2019, as soon as the first case of contamination was detected. All in all, The Taiwan officials undertook 124 preventive actions against the pandemic, including:
– Leveraging the health insurance database and integrating it with its immigration and customs databases to begin generating big data for analytics. Thus, doctors could rely on a patient’s travel info when evaluating the symptoms.
– Searching the national health insurance database for patients who tested negative on flu tests to find cases of coronavirus.
– Using electronic fencing and mobile phone location data to quarantine infected individuals.
As you can see, when it comes to case identification and quarantine measures, Taiwan adopted a truly data-driven approach. On top of that, the country’s officials cooperated with the telecom companies to launch an Entry Quarantine System so travelers can complete the health declaration form by scanning a QR code that leads to an online form. Mobile health declaration pass, which allowed for faster immigration clearance for those with minimal risk, was then sent via SMS to phones.
But Taiwan wasn’t always as successful and proactive; back in 2003, it was fighting a losing battle with the SARS virus. The country emerged from it with a decision to prepare for the next crisis. They set up a National Health Command Center equipped with a data analytics unit and everything needed to fight the next pandemic.
Obviously, we should adopt at least some of their approaches after the COVID-19 pandemic subsides.
How COVID-19 Will Change Healthcare
In the wake of the pandemic, the flaws of the healthcare system are obvious. While Medical R&D focuses on medications aimed to fight cancer and coronary diseases, vaccine testing and development remains suspended until the pandemic hits. Local communities lack support from the unified emergency center and take disparate, non-coordinated efforts. Millions of people who can’t afford to pay medical bills remain undiagnosed and untested. Plus, there’s a shortage of tests for correct diagnosis as well as for supplies like gloves, respirators, lung ventilation units, etc.
Surely, things have got to change.
The change is happening now, although, in the height of a pandemic, we are forced to adapt on the go. As of March 17, the US government is reportedly in talks with the tech companies about using location data to fight coronavirus (yes, despite the unwaning privacy concerns). We are also witnessing the rise of the tech trends that become highly relevant in the midst of the outbreak:
Telemedicine
COVID-19 is highly contagious, and medical institutions run the risk of becoming the sources of contamination. Under these circumstances, remote consultations with doctors become highly relevant.
Out of necessity, remote office visits could skyrocket in popularity as traditional-care settings are overwhelmed by the pandemic. There would also be containment-related benefits to this shift; staying home for a video call keeps you out of the transit system, out of the waiting room and, most importantly, away from patients who need critical care – says Ezekiel J. Emanuel, chair of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
3-D Printing
The technology that could be quickly rolled out to address the shortage of resources is 3-D printing. Anything, from pills to respirator valves, can be 3D printed to fill the need for supplies in emergency situations, such as global pandemics.
Electronic health records
Taiwan’s experience prompts us to recognize the importance of electronic health records, which are, essentially, a goldmine for data. One of the lessons learned from the COVID-19 outbreak will involve increased implementation of electronic health record systems which can be integrated with travel databases and analyzed for relevant data.
Remote healthcare monitoring
Remote healthcare monitoring will be another technology contributing to mining data for virus detection and predictive analytics. Needless to say, wearable devices will become more advanced and include a wider range of health metrics to enable physicians to track patients’ conditions in real-time.
Laboratory automation solutions
Effective and timely lab testing can help take instant preventive measures and stem the pandemic before it’s full-on. In the foreseeable future, we will witness the growing demand for laboratory automation solutions and sophisticated laboratory information management systems like LIMSys.
Most importantly, though, COVID-19 pandemic is forcing us to recognize the full value of scientific research, at least in the healthcare sector, admit the necessity for government-funded pharmaceutical R&D, making healthcare more financially accessible to the public, and allocating emergency budgets for public healthcare.
Setting up global emergency pandemic response systems will require governments to closely collaborate with tech companies and take coordinated efforts to stem the outbreaks. Surely, one of the challenges will involve handling patients’ sensitive data, communicating the importance of social distancing, and other preventive measures.
One way or the other, we are hopeful that the lessons of COVID-19 will not remain unlearned.