'Digital health innovation is no longer an option, but a necessity for health systems'

The Asia Pacific Medical Technology Association (APACMed), has established a formal Digital Health Committee in order to focus on core advocacy themes such as interoperability, regulatory, cybersecurity, and reimbursement. On the latter point, the committee conducted global literature review combined with field research across the Asia Pacific, consulting public and private stakeholders, healthcare practitioners, and many other medical ecosystem players. APACMed study formulated the current state of Digital Health policies in the Asia Pacific, covering Australia and India as the two archetypes, which are poised uniquely with their own set of challenges and advantages. Roberta Sarno, Digital Health Manager, APACMed, Singapore trains the spotlight on the extensive research conducted by APACMed Digital Health Committee on these policy pathways for Asia Pacific. Edited excerpts;

- Hithaishi C Bhaskar 

Roberta Sarno, Digital Health Manager, Asia Pacific Medical Technology Association (APACMed), Singaporedigital health technologies.

What are the key scenarios that may act as hurdles against a proactive digital health adoption in the APAC region?

Healthcare systems across the Asia Pacific (APAC) region are highly fragmented, and the level of Digital Health (DH) adoption and maturity varies from country to country. As such, there is a wide variation in how DH solutions are brought to each market. However, some common challenges impeding the scale up of DH in APAC include the lack of regulatory guidelines, harmonised interoperability standards, cybersecurity and reimbursement frameworks.

One of the key factors that could accelerate DH adoption and deliver healthcare to people in a more accessible, affordable, and scalable way is having in place robust reimbursement frameworks specific for DH. To this end, the APACMed Digital Health Committee has developed a position paper identifying these hurdles and proposing customised frameworks that countries in the region could adopt, depending on their level of readiness and regulatory standards.

The committee identified three key barriers to digital health adoption in APAC:

Lack of value assessment frameworks specific to digital health

Fragmented and non-fit-for-purpose funding and reimbursement efforts

Complex evidence generation requirements and health financing schemes that are not appropriate for digital health technologies.

Unlike traditional medical devices and drugs, for which hard clinical outcomes are primarily used as a measure of success, DH has the potential to also look at efficiency gains and other factors to measure value such as, reducing physical touch points and visits to the physician, relative value units, health outcomes, enhanced efficiency in cost, time and resources.