Closing the gap with a Digital bridge (Part II)
As we said in the part I, Latin-America has plummeted in terms of economy, social parity and healthcare access, the situation continues to deepen as the region tries to roll out their vaccine strategies against the inertia of a Global pandemic that now has seen the discoveries of new variations of the virus (The Brazillian strain in the countries in South America, the UK strain in the USA and rest of North America, the South African strain, Indian strains, etc).
Apart from the general disruption that the different quarantine strategies per country in the Americas has generated, there has been an overall increase of the amount of startups in terms of Healthcare and an important shift in the market (landscape) in terms of new technologies oriented to Healthcare, Diagnostics, Therapeutics and hospital management tools. These startups are impulsed by the decrease of offer in terms of medical attention and the increase of the volume of patients (COVID-19 patients but also patients with chronic diseases that, due to the quarantine and the saturation of services, have not been able to attend these conditions and that now require of emergency services or urgent care).
Countries like Chile, Uruguay, Colombia and Panama are starting to invest heavily in these new trendy companies that offer a new way of inclusivity, healthcare access to everyone. Governmental support budgets have been generated to support the companies that enter the landscape of innovation in the different countries of Latin-America. But, how can countries in Latin-America (where vast pieces of land separate rural from urban and where basic services like water or electricity are not covered) renew their healthcare access services? Is the creation of these startups enough?
Is the creation os these startups enough?
Most certainly not. There is a big panorama of needs and requirements in order to generate the cadence for the development of healthcare access with these new tools. For the sake of this article, we will name a couple of them and explain them subsequently:
- Mobile connectivity.
- Public and private commitment to development in digital healthcare (and digital services)
- Adoption of Digital Health tools by providers
- Clear regulation and financing for Digital Health (Explained in Part III)
Mobile connectivity; In the last 5 years, we have been experiencing a rapid development on these services, even in the most rural areas of countries such as Perú or Brazil. In Peru, 12,9 million people are already mobile connected (40,5% of Peru’s population). Until 2020, a new 3% of the population of Peru was acquiring mobile technologies yearly and entering these adoption groups, this expansion cannot stop as it will be helping the country tremendously in matters of closing the healthcare access gap. The COVID-19 pandemic poses a grave risk for this expansion and it is a key factor that has to be taken in consideration in terms of healthcare parity and access.
It should be taken into account that the reality of the countries in Latin America in terms of connectivity and internet access is very varied. There are countries where connectivity services are accessible, and it is precisely in those countries where we see that the growth of digital health services has increased significantly. Additionally, to have digital health services, not only connectivity as such is enough, but also the quality of the connection. Countries with high-speed mobile networks and / or fiber optic services with access for most of the population, can provide telemedicine and remote monitoring services that allow continuity of health services. Coincidentally, the countries that we previously indicated as those that invest the most in health startups are also those with the highest quality and speed connection in the region:
An important point regarding the implementation of 5G, on which there are many expectations regarding the use cases that it will facilitate for digital health applications, is that it will probably continue to generate a gap between rural regions and urban areas as well as accentuate (specially at the beginning of network deployment) inequality in access by social status.
Public and private commitment to development in digital healthcare (and digital services); Great initiatives like Health Panama or the Chilean collaboration of companies in Health tech are being created to leverage public and private interventions to development in Digital Health. Private companies like Entel (Chile) have been assertive to impulse the creation of a Tech Hub in Santiago, they also run competitions and post acceleration programs for interesting startups.
The public sector, however, is very behind. Overwhelmed by the COVID-19 situation, unable to create a strategic plan, the public organizations at country levels are collapsing and not able to plan for future healthcare initiatives, this would require a generational, professional and managerial change that, unfortunately, right now is not possible. The state of the pandemic in Latin-America will continue to decrease efficiency and efficacy at public levels, so the private sector has the responsibility to steer the development in the years to come.
Also, as the pandemic continues in these countries, the governments are developing new budget strategies to palliate the burden that the COVID-19 has imposed to the economies. In that sense, most of the budget has been reallocated from R&D to social initiatives such as financial aids and tax relieves for the poorest population. While we understand the necessity of these initiatives, this kind of measures will impact in the short-term but defunding R&D and technology investment initiatives will have impact in the middle and the long term, causing that the motor of the new economies start to working slower and slower and the truly economic recovery might take many more years to become a reality.
Adoption of Digital Health tools by providers; As difficult to understand as it sounds, the adoption of new technologies is not a strong characteristic of Latin-American health institutions (or healthcare providers). With the notorious exceptions of some high end hospitals from the America Economy list (Clinica Las Condes, Santiago / Albert Einstein Hospital, Sao Paulo / Fundación CardioInfantil, Bogotá / Hospital Clínica Bíblica, Costa Rica, etc.) the biggest group of medical institutions or professionals are falling behind in terms of Digital Health literacy or user knowledge.
A upscaled and massive educational program needs to be assessed in terms of delivering medical and digital knowledge to thousands of medical professionals in Latin-America, from digital radiology to the usage of tele-health, AI, wearables, etc. and the implementation of these technologies in matters of the clinical usage. It is important that the providers, not only accept the existence of the technology, but that they learn to use it and rely on it and, at the same time, advocate for it at institutional levels. This process should also involve the technology vendors, so they can help to address the concerns from the medical staff and provide a clear vision to the institutions regarding how the use of this technology can help them to achieve their strategic goals while, at the same time, providing better and more efficient healthcare services.
There are more challenges that we will face as the technological development begins surfaces in Latin-America: Patient digital health literacy, trust and willing to use / Guideline implementation of Digital Health solutions in terms of the medical specialties / National programs using new tools. All these topics will be covered in the Part III of this series of articles.
End of part II
