Healthcare will invest heavily in a forecasting system to predict likelihood of future disasters: Vandana Pakle

Vandana Pakle, Managing Director, Nanavati Super Speciality Hospital

The world is now acclimatising to the functioning of the ‘new normal’. The healthcare industry rose to the COVID challenge with both public and private hospitals, nursing homes, and doctors striving against an unpredictable virus and evolving treatment guidelines. The healthcare industry is likely to find stronger footing in the next decade with massive insights and strategic takeaways of overcoming the global pandemic.

The fast-tracking of medicine approvals (new and repurposed for COVID-19) and rapid progress in vaccine production, compressing the approval timeline to months from decades, has metamorphosed the entire ecosystem of the healthcare industry. We are certain to resolve preventable causes of death with development of vaccines for global killers such as dengue, malaria and different types of cancers in a similar fast-track ecosystem.

The next decade will be benefited by rapid change in perception and acceptance of digital technologies. The future may witness us reaching out to distant villages, suffering the absence of clinical expertise and use a digital stethoscope to listen to their heart and lungs similar to a physical examination and subsequently prescribe relevant medicines.

Most importantly, the healthcare industry will no longer like to fight in the dark and invest heavily in a forecasting system to predict the likelihood of future disasters. Technological advancement in Artificial Intelligence based disaster forecasting models will not only help us prevent the colossal loss and disruption of human lives but prepare us as a society to effectively tackle a global disaster.