A report by McKinsey & Company recently revealed that telehealth usage had increased 38 times from its pre-pandemic baseline since an initial spike in April 2020. As a result, Health Tech investments have leapfrogged with three times more VC digital health investment in 2020 than three years before.
Health Tech, a portmanteau of ‘healthcare’ and ‘technology’, isn’t new. However, this phenomenal jump in demand and investments was borne out of necessity after the COVID-19 outbreak when people were confined to their homes and had to find ways to continue seeking medical care safely.
Perhaps one of the main drivers for this skyrocketed growth is a growing mobile-first generation. The region is experiencing a rapid digital penetration rate, seeing an increase in 100 million internet users from 2015 to 2019.
Among these, Indonesia has a 48 per cent digital penetration rate, and Thailand has seen a slightly higher at 67 per cent, signalling readiness for innovation, even in conservative industries like healthcare.
Furthermore, we have to look at chronic diseases like obesity that can lead to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cancer and diabetes. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 62 per cent of all deaths in Southeast Asia are from NCDs, of which almost half are below 70 years of age.
Paired with the growing demand for convenience and access, cost-effectiveness and high-quality healthcare, there are immense opportunities for Health Tech growth in the region to support long term chronic care management.
We look at what’s next for health tech in the SEA region.
Telemedicine is more than a pandemic novelty
While Health Tech was forced to rise to the ranks during the COVID-19 pandemic, it shouldn’t be treated as a stopgap – instead of as a way to look at proactive healthcare management sustainably to take on a preventative approach to looming epidemics and chronic illnesses.
As highlighted in the McKinsey & Company study, telehealth usage hit an inflexion point at the beginning of the pandemic but continued to stabilise at way higher levels than before.
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Even as we approach the new normal, there is an opportunity to consider telemedicine services as a permanent supplementary health management tool, especially for long-term healthcare and wellness monitoring purposes that apply in personal lives and the workplace.
Health tech must lock in sustainable outcomes in the long-term by tapping in on the momentum of the pandemic and the mobile generation.
While health tech has already established its consumer base, it’s essential to consider new user adoption. That way, they’ll be able to identify and gather new and existing user behavioural trends, attitude shifts, and underlying blockers to better understand the motivations behind the demand for different types of telemedicine services in today’s digital age.
While Health Tech and telehealth, in particular, bring about accessibility and ease of visits, there is also a need to consider the challenges of innovation in an industry as intricate as healthcare. Because of the lack of necessity in the pre-COVID-19 era, many may experience a natural resistance to the idea of speaking to your doctor virtually as the first port of call.
Adding to the resistance are looming concerns over technological infrastructure, and patient-doctor suitability as other industries too face the threat of security breaches in the digital landscape. As we witness other industries stepping up their digital transformation efforts, we must learn from their experiences and apply them sensibly to the healthcare industry.
In addition, health tech providers must hire the right people, such as doctors and physicians, who are adept at handling the technology and invest in knowledge sharing about how telehealth can be used to keep people abreast of their overall healthcare management regularly without compromising on their safety.
Meeting the growing demands of organisations and the future workforce
Due to the pandemic, many organisations have begun relooking their HR policies and implementing a hybrid work model of remote and on-site workers.
As such, B2B health service providers need to consider how telemedicine services can be used as a smart health management tool for HR leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners.
Corporate healthcare needs to take on a more WFH focused approach such as by means of telehealth for consultations, chronic disease management and health screenings. By partnering with telehealth providers, business leaders are empowered to gain a holistic view of the health of their entire organisation.
By prioritising the health of their employees, both employer and employee can reap cost-saving benefits and, in the long run, benefit from an enhancement of their overall work productivity.
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Increasing the accessibility of medical care through telehealth is just the beginning of long-term proactive health management for companies. Throughout the last three years of the pandemic, organisations have seen an increased focus on healthcare management, such as daily COVID-19 screenings and temperature checks, quarantine procedures for positive cases and more.
When these processes are not efficient, it can lead to ambiguity and work safety issues which can affect workplace productivity and absenteeism rates.
With the uptick of health-conscious individuals, it is no longer viable to focus purely on preventative care (e.g. visiting a doctor only when symptoms get serious) that does not encourage individuals to continuously monitor their bodies and stay healthy.
With telehealth, employees and employers can use more accessible and affordable costing models to complement traditional medical insurance.
For instance, at Good Doctor Technology, our B2B partners benefit from subscription packages for unlimited consultations for sick care and corporate wellness management and COVID-19 care programmes.
Revolutionising the traditional approach to healthcare management
Reactive health management looks at waiting for symptoms to escalate or waiting to fall sick before speaking to a healthcare professional. Before the pandemic, it was common for patients to attribute symptoms to the common flu or brush more dire symptoms off by administering self or home medication interventions.
With the increasing trend of people taking their health matters into their own hands, it is important to educate them on how to care for their health safely while retaining independence. Besides increasing the accessibility of healthcare services through telemedicine, Good Doctor Technology aims to place healthy lifestyles at the forefront of health management.
By educating the public on healthier behaviour, increasing the supply of doctors, and providing the convenience and ease of consultations, we are putting people back in control of their health to create more sustainable outcomes.
That being said, telehealth isn’t just about supporting patients through critical healthcare services at the speed and comfort of their homes. There is a need for people to be more mindful of their overall health to not worsen in the future.
By moving away from the traditional reactive approach to managing one’s health, primary healthcare costs incurred by patients over time can also be better managed. Of course, this is not to say that we have to move away from physical clinics altogether.
Rather, telehealth is now moving towards an O2O (online/offline) model in the new normal where virtual services complement physical services to provide a much more holistic care approach for patients.
Also Read: How can tech help with COVID-19 control and our return to normalcy?
Patients can also receive the right care at the right time in this collaborative ecosystem as they will be triaged and referred to traditional healthcare facilities only if they cannot manage their symptoms at the primary care level.
This will help avoid overburdening hospital resources and allow healthcare professionals at the tertiary care level to focus on severe and intensive care cases. Through teleconsultations, minor urgent primary care issues can be handled outside of the hospital walls and chronic care management cases can still be attended to effectively.
That being said, there are still questions to be explored in the industry that require time and experience to be answered sufficiently. Such as is the healthcare ecosystem gradually becoming more closed-looped, and what does this mean for the industry?
As we move towards a data-driven world, does aggregating patient data improve their overall wellness journey, and what role do platforms play in this?
These are not minor queries but have a significant impact on the future of health tech in the region, and this is a good thing as we continue to move forward. Besides the healthcare industry adapting to digital models, the pandemic has forced healthcare providers to embrace new approaches, some of which the world might not have been ready for.
Still, there is no doubt that we will continue to see new challenges and opportunities for Health Tech in the years to come.
By constantly innovating, reacting quickly and collaborating with like-minded organisations and people, health tech is well on its way to transforming the future of healthcare in the region.
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