Digital healthcare towards sustainability goals
The digital wave has landed on the healthcare’s shore and systematically transformed the healthcare service in the 21st century. Along with the accomplishments arise several sustainability issues.
Digitalization has proven its potential in creating significant sustainability upsides across several industries. With all these references, whether it could create the same advances for such a by nature human-centric like healthcare? Let’s find out!
Why should we care about digital sustainability purpose within healthcare?
For an industry, which has an inseparable connection with humans such as healthcare, going digital has been raised several sustainability issues because it leaves no sustainability dimension untouched. From the economy, society, environment and further to the environment, digital could be the turning point leading healthcare to either up-or downward results.
The spread of information and communications technology and global interconnectedness has great potential to accelerate human progress, to bridge the digital divide and to develop knowledge societies.
-The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Being concerned a game-changer, digital healthcare carries, along with the economical viability, its social mission. Indeed, digital health should be an integral part of health priorities and benefit people in an ethical, safe, secure, reliable, equitable, and sustainable way. It should be developed with principles of transparency, accessibility, scalability, replicability, interoperability, privacy, security, and confidentiality (WHO, 2021). According to this statement, let’s see how far digital healthcare has gone.
The current situation of digital healthcare
The digital wave has landed on the healthcare shore and systematically transform the healthcare service in the 21st century. Spanning from telemedicine, digital diagnostics solutions to electronic health records, digital healthcare provides broader access to healthcare-related services, hence assisting healthcare flexibility against disruptive changes. Especially during the social distancing situation caused by COVID-19, digital has shown itself as one of the healthcare withstanding pillars.
Case study of Corona-Warn-App
Published by the Robert Koch Institute on behalf of the German government, the Corona-Warn-App can make an important contribution to the infection chain breaking and thereby support the health authorities in tracing contacts.
The Corona-Warn-App helps to map exposures and supports the public health authorities. Encounters with strangers in public spaces are also recorded and potentially exposed individuals are identified faster due to the automation feature from Corona-Warn-App.
Furthermore, the existence of a remarkable amount of health tracking applications gradually shifts people’s behavior from being indifferent to be being aware of their health status, not to mention motivates a wholesome lifestyle. Such user-friendly, convenient access encourages people to be proactive and take better care of their own well-being. Take Vivy application as an example.
ViVy case study
Baked in Germany, Vivy is on a mission to build the leading digital health platform for personalized interaction towards better health. We connect people to the services they need to manage, improve and optimize their health.
Evidently, we all get the sense that digital does gain momentum on healthcare’s sustainability. However, hunches are not sufficient for anything to be concluded. Coming up next, we place digital healthcare achievements under the UN’s 17 Sustainability Development Goals to further address its advance.
The accomplishments of digital healthcare for the society
Clearly, digital healthcare is not able to cover the goal package altogether. But for those goals below, digital healthcare does show its power.
- Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
- Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
- Reduce inequality within and among countries
- Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
- Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
No wonder that digital healthcare should promote well-being. We can find digital advantages ranging in every level, every age.
From the applications for our next generations …
Case study LittleSeed Voxax Bay
LittleSeed’s Voxel Bay is the world’s first virtual reality platform built by doctors and kids (at heart) for pain and anxiety relief in clinics large and small. It facilitates distraction through engagement in a completely novel, challenging, and fun environment, and brings genuine joy and laughter to the hospital.
… to our senior generations
Case study SCAN Health Plan’s Rally platform
Created by SCAN Health Plan and Rally Health, SCAN’s senior platform target the loneliness and isolation issues from the senior population.
On the Rally platform, members will join online social groups, set and work towards wellness goals and get information about relevant health topics.
It offers a four-pronged approach towards health, which includes care, wellness, coaching and rewards. Within the platform, users can receive information about managing a chronic condition or ways to improve mental well-being. Rally can also help users better their overall health by setting goals and giving rewards when smart health decisions are made.
When SCAN members join Rally, they will gain access to an online social community to interact with peers and share experiences.
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
Digital technology has paved the way for advanced medical intervention whereby women can prevent pregnancies, prepare and plan for conceiving a child, or ensuring a healthy pregnancy.
Case study Ava:
Launched in the US in July 2016, the Ava bracelet is worn during sleep, providing women with real time, personalized information about fertility, pregnancy, and general health — delivered in a way that is convenient and non-invasive. Ava’s mission is to advance women’s reproductive health by bringing together artificial intelligence and clinical research.
Due to the growing awareness of breast health, organizations are utilizing technology to invent applications and devices that encourage users to practice healthy lifestyles, body positivity and reduce the risk of breast cancer among women.
Case study No Touch Breast Scan
Based in Pennsylvania, No Touch Breast Scan’s mission is to make early-stage breast cancer detection possible for all women. The company designs, develops and commercializes globally adoptable breast cancer detection solutions for women of all ages and demographics. In addition, UELS creates automated products that are easy to use and do not require highly skilled medical practitioners for accurate and effective test administration or complicated analysis.
Reduce inequality within and among countries
A study conducted by J P Ruger and H‐J Kim has proven the strong relationship between child and adult mortality inequality and the healthcare sector's varieties. Tackling inequalities in health will thus require a set of strategies tailored to the individual needs of each group, which digital health records and AI can probably assist.
AI-based solutions can improve the detection of several medical conditions in developing countries, such as the Cholera endemic in Southern Africa or Dengue Fever Hazard in Asia.
Case study Mapping Dengue Fever Hazard with Machine Learning
Kozo Watanabe, head of the Molecular Ecology and Health Laboratory at Japan’s Ehime University and his collaborators from the University of Tokyo, De La Salle University in the Philippines, and Padjadjaran University in Indonesia has developed the machine learning methods to gauge dengue risk.
The researchers plan next to construct scenarios of how cities might use their data on land use and flooding to predict dengue incidence in their jurisdictions and to develop countermeasures in advance to help them be more resilient.
While AI supports health improvement on a macro level, digital healthcare record accelerates healthcare service on a micro-level, in which it assists the health data access for both caregivers and care-receivers simplifies the clinical process in developing countries.
Case study Open MRS in developing countries
As a recognized Global Good, OpenMRS serves an essential role in a country’s health information system. Data from OpenMRS is increasingly used to inform the public health decisions needed to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals, measure progress towards UNAIDS’ 95–95–95 targets for HIV epidemic control, and achieve universal health coverage.
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
Although just a nudge, the health-promoting applications could potentially create environmental benefits. A majority of users admitted that using their diet and nutrition apps enhanced their motivation to live healthier, therefore led to a sustainable consumption style. According to World Resource Institute, the average US diet (2009) required nearly a hectare of farmable land and resulted in 1.4 tons of CO₂ equivalent. Merely the reduction of a single meat type, beef, can reduce per person land use and greenhouse gas emissions by 15–35%, whilst more ambitious diet changes can result in reductions of over 50%.
Moreover, shifting into a healthier dietary could change the consumption pattern of soft drinks and other sugary beverages, hence reducing the waste in form of cans and plastic bottles.
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Wasted paper and carbon emission are two main matters that digital health, especially digital health records, promise to solve. Indeed, digitizing patients' health records can substitute paper, as a result, preserve a large amount of paper and cutting off tons of CO₂.
“Electronic health records have the potential to improve the environmental footprint of the health care industry. We estimate that Kaiser Permanente’s electronic health record system, which covers 8.7 million beneficiaries, eliminated 1,000 tons of paper records and 68 tons of x-ray film, and that it has lowered gasoline consumption among patients who otherwise would have made trips to the doctor by at least three million gallons per year.”
— Use of electronic health records can improve the health care industry’s environmental footprint (2011)
Furthermore, digital health records combined with telehealth allow efficient exchanging and diagnosing processes between patients, caregivers, and care providers. As a result, effective medical treatment could help avoid double treatment, reduce in-person and ambulance rates, which represent 40% to 70% CO₂ emission reduction.
Now, we can secure our opinion about digital’s positive effect within healthcare. But, if digital healthcare is truly that sustainability-beneficial, why are there still a big chunk of criticisms arising among the merits?
Remaining criticisms
Going digital! Is it going to make a human-centric industry like healthcare corrupted? Regardless of its potential in creating upside breakthroughs, people still ask questions against digital healthcare.
Frequent criticisms against digital healthcare
The ownership of health data issue. In which digital healthcare suppliers could misuse or fail to secure the users' medical information to benefit themselves or other third parties.
Misinterpretation of data. In which people feel over-secured by the health data they can access and refuse to seek medical help.
Institutional ageism. In which the seniors could be left out by the lack of digital skills and technical know-how, therefore receive unequal healthcare service.
Bio-surveillance risks. Critics worry about the potential loss of civil liberties correlated with individuals handing over their private health data to government entities.
Lack of existing regulation. The existing regulation could not keep pace with the technology breakthrough, thus leaving the civilians' private data endangered. In fact, the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act (2009 updated), aiming to protect patient private medical information, has received several critics due to its oversight allowing the patient's private medical information continuing access from over 600,000 types of businesses and the lack of captivity of their law enforcement.
As the tech giants, namely Facebook, Apple, Alphabet Inc. are envisaging their entrance into the healthcare sector, a general strategic framework is required to fully address both existent and potential issues, consequently supporting sustainable healthcare growth.
Ways towards a better landscape
Acknowledge the risks gives the healthcare stakeholders the advantage to be strategic. To turn digital into a star in healthcare’s portfolio, World Health Organisation (WHO) has built up a guideline with a complete principle pack and phrase instruction.
Comprising four principles, the guideline aims to direct the global strategy towards the appropriate and sustainable adoption of digital health technologies within the national health sector and health strategies.
- Acknowledge the necessary of countries' decisions and commitment for a nation-wide systematically digital healthcare institutionalization
- Recognize the need for an integrated strategy towards successful digital healthcare initiatives.
- Motivate the appropriate digital technology within healthcare.
- Address the obstacles from digital healthcare implementation in the least-developed areas and urge strategic solutions.
Based on the guideline, those strategic objectives provide guidance and coordination on global digital health transformation. They strengthen synergies between initiatives and stakeholders to improve health outcomes and mitigate associated risks at all levels.
Regarding the remaining criticisms, digital healthcare has proven to be our trustworthy ally in the long run towards sustainability. With the global strategic framework and the corporation across countries, we can be optimistic for a desire digital healthcare sustainability landscape, where social, economic, and environmental aspects are fully taken into concern.
