Achieving UHC with Tools (Part I): So much talk about Universal Health Coverage
Now, most of us might be aware of Universal Health Coverage (UHC); the idea that everybody should have access to quality and affordable healthcare. Just like many policies that come and go, there is so much big talk around UHC. As I travel more around Africa recently, I come across lots of these talks which are good to hear but then when you think about them better, you realize they have lots of holes. So that you start wondering whether this beautiful goal of UHC is indeed achievable.
Well, I think, at the core, UHC is quite achievable. However, I believe that attaining UHC starts with more people having this passionate desire to make it work as against just talking about it, perhaps because our jobs demand that we talk about it. It requires more people who really want to do whatever it takes to make it work. This needs more people who see healthcare as a means to help people have and maintain health and not just a business for mere money making. This requires more people who seek a healthier world at the very core.
To be clear, I do not want to bother us with so much talk about UHC here. Neither do I intend to assert that I would give the panacea for making UHC work. However, what I do want us to try to do here is look at ways we could be prioritizing and thinking more about things that likely have the potentials to be massively helpful as we work towards UHC. And the way we are going to be doing that is to “think more about tools that would help make UHC work for more people.” So we are going to leave most of the talks and focus on tools that could help us get things done better and faster.
For starters, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), UHC means that all people and communities can use the promotive, preventive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services they need, [and that these should be] of sufficient quality to be effective, while also ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the user to financial hardship. This revolves around having the right people, right products, right policies, adequate funding, adequate infrastructure, and just about every other helpful tool. In summary, we need to have a system where healthcare is available, accessible, affordable and of good quality.
Now, thinking of tools, we could ask; are their tools within or outside our current healthcare system that could help us achieve these goals, criteria or attributes faster? Moreover, we need to ask this question at every step of the way. Not just at the seemingly more significant decisions but on every step of the way. This means seeking better tools, not only at a high level but in every sub-problem or sub-level. To put things in perspective, let’s look at two areas in which we are actively developing tools that could help accelerate progress and transform everything.
We start with research. I choose to begin with research because researching and innovating are at the core of most meaningful developments. Sadly, many people usually do not think of how to improve their system and make original contributions to healthcare development; we like to depend on other people for improvements. Well, that’s not how to get better fast. In health research, we focus on how to accelerate the rate of drug discovery, and I think it is an excellent example of how to stimulate the attainment of UHC, on both local and global levels.
Most times we talk about the need to reduce the cost of drugs. Apparently for UHC to work well, drug and similar products should be very affordable. However, among the most significant contributors to the high cost of drugs is the fact that usually, drug developers spend a lot of resources in time and money doing research. This prohibitive cost not only makes drugs costly but also prevents many intending individuals and organizations (especially in the developing regions of the world like Africa) from getting involved in serious research and development efforts.
Interestingly, this is where tools come in. So we now ask; are there tools that could help us bring down the costs while helping us do better drug R&D work with potentially better outcomes than the traditionally costly methods? So can we improve the processes and make better drugs faster and cheaper? Now, if the process of drug making becomes more economical and quicker, we would likely have more affordable medicines. We could then channel saved resources to even more drug developments so that more useful and quality drugs would be developed and brought to market faster. Imagine for a minute the impact this would have on the effort towards realizing UHC, locally and globally!
At this very moment, this is what the tool of artificial intelligence (AI) is doing for drug development. For instance, procedures that took upwards of 3–4 years could now be accomplished in a matter of months, saving huge costs while accelerating the rate at which essential drugs are brought to market. It is pleasing that Insilico Medicine is among the global leaders in this effort. Insilico Medicine’s effort in drug discovery and aging research has been acclaimed widely.
Meanwhile, there is a need for researchers to collaborate more. There is a need for more human life data to be channeled to AI developments. There is a need to ensure that representative data from all over the world are made available for AI developments. Among other benefits, this would help train better AI systems and also help avoid bias in AI-enabled developments and other similar health developments. There is a need to ensure that data is well handled with adequate privacy and access controls coupled with efficient movement and storage of data. Moreover, there is a need for healthcare professionals and patients to derive more value from human life data and be rewarded adequately as an incentive to generate more quality data. Longenesis is trying to solve these and more.
While I am actively promoting these efforts and tools, it is evident that they are helping “solve real problems and are making things better” towards the realization of UHC for individuals and communities. By the way, I think it is important to start this series with concrete examples of what I know. If we could accelerate the rate of medical discovery while helping healthcare practitioners and researchers do better, then we could rightly be said to be on the fast lane towards UHC. Moreover, if we could somehow also directly incentivize healthcare professionals and patients to take better care of themselves, which is part of what Longenesis does, then I think that’s really cool outcome!
So it is easy to see that seeking and applying tools not only helps enhance the work and skill of professionals but also helps us have better products, helps us reduce costs, and helps us have better analytical tools, which allows better information for better policies. So what is next? Achieving UHC becomes entirely realizable much faster. We could apply this way of thinking to almost every aspect of healthcare and requirements for UHC. It becomes evident that if we could think more concerning tools (practical tools for that matter) which could be helpful in extending our capabilities at every step of the way, we could accelerate the rate of attainment of UHC for people everywhere.
In subsequent parts of this series, we would be looking at other examples of tools for accelerating the attainment of UHC and how we could be thinking about some of these things better.
See you next week on part deux.
About the Author
Iraneus Ogu directs the Africa Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain for Healthcare Initiative at Insilico Medicine, Inc. In addition to tech developments, he works on Longevity and Aging Interventions with his research efforts focusing on neuroregeneration. He equally works with the development team at Longenesis.com and also has a background in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Greenwich, where his research focused on controlled-release dosage forms.
