ASIA News

Space 95 – an IT services company in Seychelles – has launched "Contak", a contact tracing app that will enable users to register places they have visited. Contact tracers at the Public Health Authority can leverage the app to better track individuals who might have been exposed to COVID-19. Public Health Commissioner Jude Gedeon mentioned in a press conference that the Ministry of Health "welcomes this app and is working closely with the developers". HOW IT WORKS At present, the app can only be downloaded from Google Play through an Android phone. A version that is compatible with iOS devices will be released later. Personal information such as an individual’s name, contact number, and National Identification Number must be provided during the registration process.  Users of the app will need to scan a QR code at the entrance of a venue. Alternatively, a door attendant will scan the app-generated QR code of the user or the QR code of other individuals whom the user has frequent contact with. Once the QR code has been scanned, the information will be safely stored and encrypted on the smartphone. Only the user will be able to gain access to this information.  Those who do not own a smartphone can have another person register their personal details on the app and print a personal QR code for them. Similarly, a person can obtain a QR code ID card supplied by the PHA. Individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 can share their stsatus through the app to inform health authorities, and others who were at the same location as them will receive an alert. This allows for groups of people to be alerted much more quickly if they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for the virus. WHY IT MATTERS Currently, Seychelles citizens will need to call the MOH to alert officials that they are a potential contact. Contact tracers will then evaluate the situation to determine if they were a close contact before letting them know what the next steps are. The app will be able to complement the Seychelles government’s contact tracing efforts.  Andy Noel, Chief Operations Officer at Space 95 mentioned that some of the problems encountered with traditional contact tracing include people being unable to accurately recall all the places that they have been to or people providing false information in visitors' logbooks as there is a lack of privacy. THE LARGER TREND To help mitigate the spread of this virus, many nations have developed contact tracing and warning apps. These apps have helped health authorities to swiftly isolate individuals who have come into contact with those who have tested positive for the virus. Healthcare providers have increasingly been developing ways to simplify the contact tracing process using technology, such as the Methodist Hospital of Southern California using an automated contact tracing system. ON THE RECORD "If you are found to be positive with COVID-19, one simply needs to go to the app and upload the diary to the health agency using Wi-Fi or internet data. This information is uploaded to a server at Department of Information, Technology and Communication, allowing the relevant authority to access the information. Someone who has scanned the same poster the same time as you will receive an alert, letting them know that they are potential contacts," Noel said.

The healthcare landscape has transformed drastically over the years and we have found ourselves in a situation where both patients and consumers alike are becoming more engaged and involved in their own health. Consequently, this has given rise to a need to find a more personalised way of managing healthcare for each individual. In addition, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has also forced us to adapt and switch to utilising digital technology to treat medical conditions instead of delivering more traditional face to face episodic care. This further cemented the dire need for a sound digital infrastructure to cater to the differing healthcare needs of each individual.  A salient reason for the creation of a Personalised Health Index specifically in APAC was due to a need to measure the readiness of health systems across the region to embrace more tailored care as well as the learning which could be derived from this diversity. The Personalised Health Index is built on 4 different vital signs –policy context, health information, personalised technologies and health services. Measures are made based on these vital signs and calibrated across the different health systems. Through this, health systems can identify where they are performing and areas of opportunity to prioritise focus and resources for the most impact can be highlighted.  Rachel Frizberg, Area Head of Asia Pacific Roche Pharmaceuticals stated, “We need to reimagine a different healthcare system – one that allows the right treatment for the right patient at the right time. The Asia-Pacific Personalised Health Index helps create a data-driven dialogue about the areas where countries are performing well and where they might look to learn from others to improve their future readiness.” Such benchmarking encourages countries to have a deeper form of appreciation of the context, challenges as well as approaches of other countries which may in turn encourage collaboration.  LESSONS IN DIGITAL HEALTH FROM COVID-19 The pandemic has served to demonstrate to us how regulatory agility has proved to be crucial in allowing the swift approval of innovative vaccines whilst ensuring that the data used remains confidential and secure. Countries in the APAC region should take steps to embrace this “new normal” and support innovation as well as ensure that the digital infrastructure is in place to enable personalised care to be delivered to patients when there is a need for it.  ENABLING REGULATORY AGILITY TO PROVIDE GREATER PERSONALISED CARE IN THE APAC REGION While the Personalised Health Index encouragingly shows there has been progress by all countries in the region, there are factors which may still prove to be a hindrance to the enabling of more personalised care in APAC.  John Lim, Professor and Executive Director of Regulatory in Duke NUS explained that there is still insufficient regulatory knowledge and capacity throughout the region which is particularly important to realise the potential of data to inform personalised healthcare. Regulatory requirements also remain fragmented despite numerous years of harmonisation and convergence efforts largely because of individual country requirements. Regulatory science and policy innovation could also be improved amongst governments and industries in the APAC region.  An all-encompassing framework has to also be set up in order to better facilitate regulatory agility within APAC. Healthcare organisations require a strong sense of trust in their government which serves as an impetus for the adoption of innovative therapies as well as the advancement of personalised digital health and tele-health solutions. There should also be transparency between the governments and citizens when it comes to how this captured data will be used.  Training to expand the regulatory capabilities for therapeutic and policy innovations will be essential as well. Regulatory sandboxes have to be set up in order to allow for the testing of new implementation or systems within a country. For instance, in Singapore, telemedicine was already going through a sandbox approach prior to COVID-19 and the pandemic served to proliferate its use across the nation.  Trans-national bodies should also look to be established to help facilitate the coordination, collaboration and information exchange within APAC. This would have to be supported by robust cross-jurisdictional frameworks which promote interoperability and the easy exchange of data. Lastly, healthcare organisations have to act quickly in order to meet the needs of patients when providing personalised healthcare.  FUTURE OF PERSONALISED HEALTHCARE The greatest strengths in APAC lie in health information as well as its digital infrastructure which shows promising growth. However, there are still vast differences amongst countries in terms of their policy environments as well as their future plans for personalised healthcare. This is a clear indication of the existing differences in regulatory, innovation as well as implementation capacities between governments in the region. To establish a clear personalised healthcare ecosystem within APAC, nations should look to leverage their strong existing digital infrastructure to help them achieve regional data interoperability and develop regulations to aid in the implementation of personalised healthcare solutions in the years to come. Click here to watch a webinar discussing the potential of a personalised healthcare ecosystem and how a new policy tool—the Asia Pacific Personalised Healthcare (PHC) Index—is helping countries build more patient-centric and sustainable healthcare systems  

HealthCerts, an amalgamation of cryptographic hashes, blockchain technology, privacy protection and proof identity, is a set of open-source digital standards which is utilised for the issuing of digital COVID-19 test result certificates. Developed jointly by the Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech) and the Ministry of Health (MOH), this new standard will help facilitate and hasten the clearing of travellers at immigration checkpoints both locally and internationally. HOW IT WORKS From March 10 onwards, travellers who go through a pre-departure COVID-19 test at selected authorised clinics in Singapore will receive their results digitally in the form of a certificate that is automatically loaded into HealthCerts. This can be manifested in the form of an attachment or URL link to the digital certificate. Subsequently, these travellers will have to upload their digital certificate to a separate website called Notarise. This website enables locally-issued certificates to be formally endorsed by the MOH so that they can be recognised at Singapore’s Changi Airport as well as foreign airports.  Upon successful completion of this process, travellers will receive another digital pre-departure test certificate containing a QR code via email and/or the SingPass mobile application. Every local in Singapore has a SingPass which stands for Singapore Personal Access and is the digital identity of every Singaporean, allowing each Singaporean to gain secure access to a plethora of government and private sector services both online and in person. Upon reaching the immigration checkpoint at airports, travellers can then present the notarized certificate displaying the QR code either in a hard copy format or as a digital copy for verification purposes. By utilising the platform Verify, airline crew and immigration authorities will be able to check on the authenticity of the digital certificate simply by scanning the QR code. The in-built system within the platform can then determine if the certificate was tampered with or notarised by the MOH. THE LARGER TREND In the wake of COVID-19, countries all around the globe have tightened healthcare measures at their borders, requiring passengers to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test or in some cases, a COVID-19 vaccination record took prior to the flight before being allowed to board the plane. However, in certain countries in Europe, such as Brazil, France and the UK, there has been a sharp rise in the number of fake COVID-19 certificates available on the black market. This undermines the efforts of governments to put a tight rein on healthcare checks in an effort to mitigate the spread of the disease. As such, it is inevitable that digital systems such as HealthCerts would become increasingly popular over time as globally, governments would seek out ways to eradicate such issues and eventually be able to safely open up air travel once more. ON THE RECORD GovTech mentioned that it has  “open-sourced the HealthCerts schema, and the code for the issuance, verification, certificate storage and display modules, which facilitates wider adoption by private sector companies or other governments”, allowing for other countries to adopt similar systems.  “Only this hash is needed to check the authenticity and validity of the digital certificate” Smart Nation and Digital Government Group added, emphasizing that the individual’s data will remain secure as only a hash which will serve as a digital fingerprint is published to the blockchain once it is issued.  

The vaccine which was developed by Chulalongkorn University showed promising results in prior trials with mice and monkeys. The University’s Centre of Excellence in Vaccine Research and Development is utilizing new mRNA technology and its clinical testing on transgenic mice showed that the vaccine was able to prevent clinical symptoms and viremia after two shots. The university is looking to enroll 72 participants in the first phase of the human trials and subsequently increase the number to 300-600 participants in the second phase. The university has also begun research on a second-generation vaccine that will help grant additional protection to its citizens against the UK and South African variants of the COVID-19 virus. Why it matters The impact of COVID-19 has been both far-reaching and devastating, causing numerous economic and social issues. The number of undernourished individuals is estimated to be at a staggering 690 million and could even rise to 132 million by the end of the year. Both business owners, as well as global corporations, have also had to bear the brunt of this pandemic and suffered tremendous losses, with most of them being unable to carry out their usual operations. Many others are also living on tethers, with an estimated 3.3 billion of the global workforce at risk of losing their jobs. The border closures and confinement measures put in place to mitigate the spread of the virus have prevented farmers from harvesting crops and selling their produce, thus disrupting the global food supply chain and making safe, healthy diets more inaccessible. As food security is threatened globally and individuals are losing their earning power, those living in less developed nations are hit the hardest, especially those marginalized populations.  Many other countries are also seeking to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. After successfully inoculating entire Thailand, the government could potentially provide international aid by importing the vaccine to other countries.  The larger trend  As of 22 February 2021, there are currently 112,100,856 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 2,480,686 deaths. However, there is still light at the end of the tunnel as the number of newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases has declined by 16 percent worldwide over the past week despite having more virulent strains of the virus break out in multiple regions. Additionally, the number of global deaths over the past week has also shown a reduction by 10 percent.  On the record “The two-dose vaccine will be administered three weeks apart and will be enlisted for a rolling review with the Thai drug regulator,” Kiat Ruxrungtham, head researcher at Chulalongkorn University’s Centre of Excellence in Vaccine Research and Development stated.  “By year-end we should have a production capacity of 1 to 5 million doses annually,” Kiat added, hinting that this number could later rise to about 20 million doses per year.

Amidst an ever-changing landscape, it’s prudent for healthcare organizations to keep pace with healthcare innovations and reap their benefits. From processing genome information quickly to storing large amounts of information and enabling global collaboration, Amazon Web Services (AWS) seeks to provide essential support to healthcare professionals so they are better equipped to discover and work together to help saves lives around the world. These benefits, which the AWS brings about, fit into five main classifications: functionality, community, security, pace of innovation, and operational expertise.  Functionality With AWS, you can store huge amounts of healthcare information. Amazon Redshift is an example of a support system that you can use in conjunction with DNA sequencing machines. This allows for the storage of more than 10 petabytes of genomics data. The AWS Cloud system also enables you to run other software on it for enhanced performance, allowing your infrastructure to process and analyze large genomic datasets. This significantly sped up operations within healthcare organizations, reducing the time taken to interpret a genome from 12 weeks to two hours.  Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) hastens the speed of a genomics dataset, which in turn greatly reduces the cost of sequencing a single genome. This swift turnaround time has also aided in accelerating research and diagnosis of leukemia, potentially helping to save dozens of lives.  Pace of innovation AWS is also equipped with video streaming capabilities such as Amazon Kinesis Video Streams, which allows the streaming of videos from accessible technologies such as webcams and mobile devices. You can subsequently stream these videos to Amazon Rekognition then use them to help detect facial positions in unborn babies or help better comprehend brain-related issues and more. AWS Lambda functions consume raw data from Kinesis Video Streams then help to analyze and mathematically compute attention and body motion metrics. You can then retrieve this processed information and use the metrics to visualize anomalies or provide alerts when detected.  Community In addition to being able to enhance workflows within an organization, AWS can have more far-reaching effects to help customers on both local and international fronts. Being able to facilitate the flow of both healthcare information and expertise around the world is also vital in the healthcare industry. Cerner, a leading supplier of health information technology solutions, is one of the many organizations that leverage AWS’s global reach and services. The AWS Cloud community creates a diverse virtual meeting space whereby innovators across different industries can gather to share their experiences and ideas and collaborate to solve healthcare-related issues. The Genome Institute of Singapore uses genomic technology for research to improve human health. Researchers using AWS across labs has been vital in helping to store data, reduce the occurrences of human error, and enable faster processing applications. When faced with a pandemic, such as COVID-19, this helps organizations cater to the healthcare needs of specific individuals as well as address infectious outbreaks. Then, the government can put in place preventive measures to save more lives.  Security Ensuring that patient data remains protected is also a top priority. Fabric Genomics, a software genomics company, relies on AWS security and encryption technologies to help safeguard this information. By using AWS, Fabric Genomics has enhanced security, which allows them to comply with strict patient health information data-protection requirements.  Operational expertise In India, the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence is an independent, nonprofit research and global hub seeking to develop artificial intelligence (AI) solutions for the betterment of social issues. Using AWS helped them process sensitive government data securely while building multiple solutions for more widespread societal problems. For example, the customer is looking to develop an AI solution to address the high infant mortality rates within the country. By taking a photo or video of the baby with their mobile phones, users can leverage the AI solution to create a virtual 3D model of the infant and calculate the baby’s weight, along with other crucial measurements. They can then put interventions in place early to help lower infant mortality rates.  With its sights firmly set on building a global cloud infrastructure through innovation, AWS has a slew of resources and technologies ready to take on more demanding workloads. We can help facilitate faster processing of larger data volumes while making sure that you can do so in a secure cloud environment anywhere on the planet.  

A report Tuesday from South Korea's Yonhap News Agency on Tuesday alleged that the regime of Kim Jong Un had tried to tap into the servers of a local drugmaker to obtain data on the Pfizer vaccine. WHY IT MATTERS The charge from South Korea's National Intelligence Service, reportedly relayed to Seoul lawmakers in a closed-door session, wouldn't be the first time North Korea was accused of cyber meddling in the search for COVID-19 vaccine data. At the moment, intelligence officials appear uncertain as to the scope of the cyber incursion and how much data might have been accessed if any. While isolated and highly-secretive North Korea hasn't reported a single case of COVID-19, the hermit kingdom is nonetheless scheduled to receive 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine from the World Health Organization's COVAX program in the next few months, according to BBC. THE LARGER TREND This isn't the first time North Korea has been accused of hacking systems around the world to obtain vaccine data. This past November, Microsoft pointed the finger at "two actors originating from North Korea that we call Zinc and Cerium" that it alleged were "targeting seven prominent companies directly involved in researching vaccines and treatments for COVID-19." Many security observers believe that the cash-strapped nation, which is said to have armies of trained hackers, might be as interested in selling vaccine data on the black market as in developing therapeutic doses for its own people. Since the first COVID-19 vaccines were first rolled out, there has been intense global concern about how hackers and other bad actors, nation-state and otherwise, might attempt to intrude upon or disrupt the development process. This past December, IBM X-Force published a report that hackers were taking aim at the vaccines' "cold chain" supply lines, in what it described as a worldwide spear phishing effort that had "potential hallmarks of nation-state tradecraft." Phishing emails had been sent to vaccine and supply chain organizations in South Korea and other nations, the report said. And in January, the European Medicines Agency reported that some data related to the Pfizer vaccine, stolen during a cyber attack the previous month, had been posted online. ON THE RECORD "There were attempts to steal COVID vaccine and treatment technology during cyber attacks and Pfizer was hacked," said Ha Tae-keung, a member of South Korea's National Assembly, about this most recent incident, according to a Reuters report on Tuesday. Twitter: @MikeMiliardHITN Email the writer: mike.miliard@himssmedia.com Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.

Philips unveiled an integrated suite of offerings which promises to revolutionize workflow in the radiology department by addressing the most pressing operational challenges across diagnostic and interventional radiology, at the RSNA 2020 virtual event.  These include its AI-enabled automated Radiology Workflow Suite, the industry-first vendor neutral Radiology Operations Command Center and the Phillips Advanced Visualization Workspace- IntelliSpace Portal 12.  By shifting from standalone products to an integrated systems and solutions approach, the Philips Radiology Workflow Suite helps to optimize radiology workflows and generate insights from integrated diagnostics. Patient data can also be connected across departments, creating interoperability for greater clinical intelligence and analysis.  This leads to clearer care pathways and predictable outcomes for every patient.   As part of its integrated suite of offerings, Philips will be launching the industry’s first vendor-neutral, multimodality, radiology operations command centre to add secure, digital virtual scanner access to existing imaging installs across multiple systems and sites. Its Radiology Operations Command Center is able to connect technologists with onsite staff in a distant location to provide real-time support and collaboration. As such, the Command Center enables remote access to scanners across an imaging network and is compatible with older imaging platforms.   The Philips Advanced Visualization Workspace- IntelliSpace Portal 12 boasts a set of new AI-assisted quantitative and automatic results generation features to support the diagnostic workflow. Its AI-assisted pulmonary capabilities include the assessment of complex lung conditions associated with COVID-19. This greatly streamlines workflow by automatically generating quantitative measurements and making radiology data available.    Innovation in the areas of radiography can bring about a plethora of benefits to both patients and healthcare specialists in several areas.   Firstly, through digitization, the frequency of patient no-shows can be greatly reduced. Such situations often cause a disruption to the workflow, leaving staff and equipment underutilized which in turn can lead to huge financial losses. Boston Medical Centre (BMC) has reaped huge benefits from digitally engaging patients before and after their appointment. Personalized text messages are delivered to remind patients of their upcoming exams and links to safety protocols or other helpful information are shared with them.   When patients arrive for their appointment, they can check in via text and do not need to gather in a waiting room which reduces the likelihood of physical interaction. Once the patient is ready to be examined, a text message is sent to invite them in. This has saved frontline staff over a thousand phone calls to patients.  By automating workflow, radiology technologists are able to get more accurate scan results the first time. For example in MR, the workload of the technologist can be reduced by automating exam planning, scanning and processing. Additionally, exam variability is also decreased and technologists are more confident in their diagnosis.   With the presence of a virtual central command center, image acquisition can be shared amongst both experienced technologists and their less experienced colleagues. As such, professional assistance can be rendered at multiple locations in real-time without the hassle of travelling.   The use of intelligent algorithms helps to automatically prioritize the cases according to their urgency and determine the best match of cases to the radiologist based on their area of expertise, availability as well as current workload. For example, when a patient with a sudden acute headache is rushed into the ED and a CT scan reveals haemorrhaging within the brain, the work task will automatically appear on the top of the work list of the neuroradiologist who is available at that moment.  Interactive multimedia offers deeper insights to clinicians by providing in-depth, longitudinal insights in radiology reports without the need for them to search for prior reports and manually compare images. Interactive multimedia reporting grants the ability to embed key images for side-by-side comparison, tumor trending information in charts and graphs and qualitative data for advanced post-processing.  By creating a unified dashboard that automatically integrates patient information from multiple sources, it facilitates clinical collaboration and aids the care team in their decision making process.   Lastly, real-time data analytics has paved the way for opportunities to better manage operations. For instance, by providing radiologists with the tools to continuously monitor KPIs such as modality-specific exam volumes, resource utilization and cancellation rates, they can better comprehend how patient engagement changes in tandem with the demand for services.   To learn more about Philips' Radiology Workflow Suite, click here.

The findings are based on a survey conducted from October to December 2020 from 17 countries.

In service since 2018, the Siriraj Mobile Stroke Unit has helped 380 stroke patients receive emergency medical treatment in Thailand so far.

The center operates on a 24 x 7 basis, and patients can either call in, email or reach out through social media platforms.