The healthcare industry is facing multiple severe challenges. A 2024 report by the World Economic Forum highlighted the severe labor shortage, which became particularly acute during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the digital age, protecting patient privacy, storing, utilizing, and sharing medical data, and ensuring institutional cybersecurity are likely to be another challenge. Furthermore, underdeveloped countries face the dual predicament of insufficient healthcare resources and poor quality, failing to meet basic healthcare needs.
The renowned medical journal *The Lancet* also stated that "addressing climate change may be the greatest global health challenge of the 21st century." The healthcare industry's carbon footprint in 2021 reached 197 million tons of carbon dioxide, accounting for over 21 TP3T of global carbon dioxide emissions. It can be said that a range of issues, including energy management, patient privacy and digital health records, healthcare quality, controlled substance management, pricing and valuation transparency, the impact of climate change on human health and infrastructure, talent recruitment, training and retention, and other ESG factors, will pose significant challenges to the healthcare industry's sustainable development.
Leveraging digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, and the Internet of Things offers an opportunity to address these sustainability challenges in the healthcare industry. For example, telemedicine enables physicians to provide consultations and treatment to patients remotely, eliminating geographical barriers, increasing accessibility to healthcare services, reducing wait times, and improving patient outcomes. This not only saves patients time and money but also reduces pressure on physical healthcare facilities, allowing healthcare providers to utilize resources more effectively, reduce costs, and provide more sustainable services. Furthermore, telemedicine helps reduce the risk of hospital-acquired infections because patients do not need to come into contact with other potentially sick patients.
Digital technology can also address patient privacy and digital health record issues. For example, by using blockchain technology and other security protocols, patient data can be securely stored and shared, protecting patient privacy and allowing digital health records to be managed more effectively, reducing the risk of errors between healthcare providers and patients. Furthermore, digital technology can address carbon footprint issues, helping healthcare providers manage energy, reduce waste, and lower costs; it also has the potential to solve talent recruitment, training, and retention problems.
In recent years, we have often seen the importance of hospitals promoting digital transformation. As the importance of sustainability issues increases, we should pay attention to using digital technology to accelerate the digital transformation of hospitals and the sustainability of services, so as to ensure that everyone can access timely and affordable medical services.
Source: Financial News Issue 711