Here are 3 steps to accelerate public healthcare innovation

The steps can unleash further innovation in APAC and Japan's healthcare industries.

Think tank ACCESS Health International, in collaboration with AWS Institute from Amazon Web Services (AWS), announced a new report titled Overcoming Barriers to Cloud Adoption in Public Healthcare in the Asia-Pacific. The research shows that policymakers and healthcare leaders have an incredible opportunity to unleash further innovation in the healthcare industry.

ACCESS Health International Senior Consultant Simeen Mirza said, "Rapid digitalisation during the pandemic has brought about remarkable advances in disease surveillance, telemedicine, and vaccine rollout. To unlock the full potential of digital health, now is an opportune time for governments and healthcare organisations to build on this momentum and take immediate action to solve the pressing challenges that are facing public healthcare today."

"We encourage policymakers and healthcare leaders to make digital transformation on healthcare a priority, so as to reduce costs, improve outcomes, ensure equity of access to healthcare, and accelerate progress towards sustainable development goals. Policymakers can propel wider cloud adoption and unleash even greater innovation by implementing risk-based digital policies like clear Cloud First policies that apply to healthcare, training workers in cloud skills, and collaborating with the private sector to leverage the full spectrum of cloud capabilities for the good of all citizens," added AWS APJ head of public policy Quint Simon.

The three key recommendations are as follows:

Establishing clarity in healthcare data governance and a cloud-first policy

Where there are existing government cloud-first policies, it should be explicitly stated that these also cover healthcare data workloads. A central digital health authority that prioritizes using cloud-based technology solutions over other IT solutions can provide a clear transformation roadmap that allows healthcare organizations to optimize infrastructure costs and access scalable IT resources while building a connected healthcare ecosystem. A great example of this comes from the UK National Health Service Digital.

Closing the digital skills gap in healthcare

To enable transformative innovation across the healthcare sector, governments need to work with industry to implement educational programs and training to upskill the workforce and to design and build human-centric digital health applications. To accelerate the digitization drive, governments should empower a designated body to boost capacity building and drive digital initiatives in partnership with the private sector. Training in cloud technology can also improve organizational efficiency.

Understanding the benefits and security capabilities of the cloud

Research respondents in the report also shared that due to a lack of awareness or understanding of the cloud, policymakers and healthcare leaders have misconceptions around security and the privacy of cloud-based data. The cloud is secure and can open up opportunities for digital transformation for healthcare systems in APAC and Japan. Increased cloud skills training can help to address this gap in understanding the benefits and security capabilities of the cloud.