Why We Urgently Need A Global Healthcare Renaissance? Lessons From the Covid-19 Pandemic

We are currently experiencing a state of global economic and public health crisis that many of us could have never imagined.

Like history has proven, these types of events have always triggered a renaissance in the arts, humanities or medicine. This pandemic has already profoundly affected many lives globally and will certainly have a long lasting impact for our society. The future of education, work, travel and the way we conduct business have already changed; they will likely never be the same. Let’s hope that as a society we will learn from the vulnerabilities and weaknesses exposed and correct the mistakes made during this pandemic. This will facilitate us being better prepared to prevent the next one and potentially also redefine our approach to disease, health and wellness. 

So what exactly would need to change in order for future generations to not experience the same failures in pandemic prevention and management like we did currently?

The improvements one can imagine are exhaustive in nature, however there are a few basic changes that could drastically optimise global population health. Ironically, they would not only prevent and improve pandemics, but would also be applicable to other chronic diseases that have plagued our society for many years( HIV, Alzheimers, Autism, Diabetes, Heart Disease to name a few…)

Lesson #1 “Sharing is Caring-Data, Science and Technology”

If all scientific and medical communities would share their data on a global platform there would be less redundancy, higher efficiency, higher effectiveness and shortened time frame to find solutions. This could be accomplished by using the full technological arsenal available to us as an augmenting agent to the collective brain power. The same deployment of AI, Blockchain, Advanced Genomic Sequencing, Precision Medicine we have observed now for Covid19 (albeit too late) could and should be sustained long term in order to find solutions for all other chronic diseases and develop tools for all future unknown pathogens.

Lesson #2 “There is a Way to do it Better, so Apply it”

For many years it has been evident that healthcare always lagged behind other industries in many aspects, however this pandemic has acutely and painfully highlighted the massive logistical power and agility of all the non-healthcare companies. While all healthcare systems globally were struggling to provide adequate life-saving protective equipment, medical devices or medications, companies from all other industries were able to quickly pivot and use their existing modern infrastructure to deliver masks, ventilators, medications and other supplies where they were most needed. Let's hope that the healthcare industry will finally discard the old legacy systems and deploy a modern, automated, efficient healthcare delivery system that can manage the needs during any global crisis.

Lesson #3 “Do It For The Greater Good”

Once could envision a hypothetical scenario with a total disruption of the current healthcare models, with a new state of the art global virtualized healthcare ecosystem. Concepts like exponential medicine and design thinking would move from the innovation lab to large scale deployment with a human-centric architecture, all the geo-political and socio-economic barriers would be removed for the greater global health and the full portfolio of digital technology available to us from all industries would be deployed. Technologies that are currently only used in niche domains could act as a catalyst for the future of public health, such as: Quantum & Edge Computing, IoT, IoB, IoM, 3D printing, robotics, nanotechnology, AR/VR/XR, tele- and mobile health, bio-implants, exoskeletons, human-computer interfaces, and advanced techniques for preventing disease such as CRISPR.

Final Lesson: “ A Winner is a Dreamer Who Never Gives up” Nelson Mandela 

Just a few months ago some of these same thoughts would have been labelled “ futuristic”, however we have now witnessed massive deployment of these technologies in our desperate quest to control the devastating humanitarian and financial effects of this pandemic. Therefore, it is my sincere hope that after all the suffering experienced globally we will experience a true re-birth. A global healthcare renaissance that future generations can cherish and benefit from.