Often
healthcare organizations, both government and private, are caught in a dilemma
of making technology choices.
Only a close collaboration between governments,
companies and ecosystem players, who have the collective experience and skills,
good understanding of the industry and a strong track record, can improve the
quality of medical services.
The burgeoning growth of the healthcare sector
in Asia has seen not only healthcare vendors tapping into the industry’s market
potential, but governments from developing nations are reaching out to
developed countries and/or their private sector healthcare institutions for
research and development resources or medical advancements.
Specifically in Asia, developments are taking
place on various fronts with governments initiating several of them. These
include investments in the National Electronic Health Record (nEHR) which in
turn is driving interest and adoption in mobile applications in hospitals; the
increasing pressure to address healthcare needs of the growing ageing
population in Asian countries is also driving public healthcare sector
restructuring to ensure focus on tighter cooperation between acute care and
community care for improvements in healthcare service delivery.
The other important development is the huge
economic potential of Medical Tourism in Asian countries. Growing competition
in Medical Tourism among the region’s countries such as Singapore, Malaysia,
Thailand and India has emerged as an important driver of growth, where private
healthcare providers are building new hospitals, and striving to differentiate
themselves in offering more hospitality patient experiences.
Importance
of Public Private partnership in healthcare
Public-Private partnerships are also emerging
as a critical focus within sectors such as healthcare. Earlier this year in
January, a Public Private Partnership for Healthcare (PPPH) was signed between
the governments of United States and China to help foster long-term cooperation
between the two nations in the areas of research, training, and regulation to
create an environment aimed at increasing accessibility to healthcare services
in China.
In Singapore, one such recent example is the
collaboration between Singapore InfoComm Development Authority (IDA) and
Motorola Solutions to drive development and adoption of healthcare mobility
applications in Singapore and in the Asia Pacific. This collaboration aims to further encourage
nurturing of more home-grown successful healthcare application developers, and
showcasing their solutions to local healthcare clusters to drive trials or
pilots to accelerate the adoption of technology in the delivery of care.
The Healthcare IT spending across the region
is increasing both in private and public hospitals and the demand for better
delivery and quality of patient care is at the heart of it
A
look at what’s next
That said, mobile end-to-end healthcare
workflow communications solutions simply cannot be realized by hardware alone.
It is essential to follow an integrated approach that combines wireless
solutions, patient care applications and mobility services, which can add
tremendous value to the users of healthcare organizations. In the coming years,
more hospitals will have wireless and adopt mobile solutions including tablets
to enable their caregivers to provide safer and more efficient point-of-care
services. With the enhancements in the infrastructure, more hospitals will be
able to move towards a paper-less environment which will in turn enable an
increase in sharing of digital patient information within a wider network of
healthcare institutions.
There already exist solutions and innovative
technologies customized for the healthcare institutions to enable these
enterprises to reinvent the way they operate. As technology vendors realize
that the solutions demanded require an end-to-end delivery approach to
customers, a robust, holistic approach is also needed to factor in the
different partnerships in the value-chain, so as to address the increasingly
sophisticated customer demands.
Governments and companies must continue to
invest in partnerships and innovative communications solutions to develop an
extensive ecosystem to bring about quality mobile healthcare solutions and new
business models to meet the needs of tomorrow’s healthcare organizations.
According to IDC Health Insights predictions
for the Asia-Pacific in 2011, the focus on digitizing health records remains
the top priority of healthcare providers across the region, among others such
as health information exchange initiatives, hospital/clinic information
systems, archival & communications systems and computerized order entry
systems. These are set to align IT with hospital business goals, improve market
responsiveness and achieve seamless operational standards in the next few
years.
Grace Ho, Director, Business Development
(Healthcare),
Motorola Solutions Asia Pacific
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Consulting, Investment and Management, focusing three main economic sectors: International PR; Healthcare & Wellness;and Tourism & Hospitality. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programs. Sign up with twitter to get news updates with @SaigonBusinessC. Thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment