By Izabela Januario, IT Research Analyst, Frost & Sullivan
The healthcare
industry has an intrinsic connection with population growth. Throughout
history its development has been affected by disease burden, demographics and
other factors, and today is no different. Important trends such as the
inversion of the age pyramid – with an ever increasing volume of elderly
population – and the growing incidence of chronic diseases will challenge
health institutions with rising care costs and declining profit margins.
According to
Frost & Sullivan’s Mega Trends in Latin America, almost 70 million people
in the region will be over 60 years old by 2020. This trend could see regional
healthcare expenditure rise to US$580 billion this year. By 2018, Brazil
in particular will have to deal with almost 52 million people suffering
from obesity and 32 million people diagnosed with diabetes. Hypertension, the
most prevalent chronic disease in Brazil, will affect 24% of the population. As
you can imagine, these trends have in the mid-to long-term the potential to
completely reshape the way healthcare is provided in Brazil.
Besides the
population changes, there are also social trends affecting the Brazilian
healthcare industry. Frost & Sullivan expects that by 2025 there will
be 1.3 billion connected devices in Latin America. This connected era is
creating a new type of patient: the engaged patient. Nowadays Brazilians are
using online search tools, mobile apps and wearable devices to increase their
awareness about their own health conditions. These informed individuals have a
different profile and do not want to simply have doctors’ appraisal; they want
to understand and participate in the care process. The surge of this new
patient profile is driving Brazilian healthcare institutions to look into
patient engagement, thus treating them more as a customer than just a patient.
Along with
the aforementioned trends that are slowly affecting the Brazilian healthcare
industry, care institutions already have to deal with daily challenges, such as
the need to increase process efficiency and control, expand care reach to a wider
population, reduce institutions’ costs and provide affordable care.
IT
Penetration in Brazil’s Healthcare industry
Technologies
will play a major role in this complex scenario and will become a key ally of
Brazilian healthcare institutions. Besides care technologies such as electronic
medical records (EMR) – a market that will reach US$336 million in Brazil by
2018 – new technologies coming directly from the IT world have a huge potential
in the Brazilian industry.
Technologies
such as social media and video conferencing are progressively gaining
space in the Brazilian healthcare industry. Both technologies can support care
process and expand knowledge for population and physicians. While social media
creates networks of patients/doctors and allows them to share experiences and
increase their findings about diseases, video conferencing has been
used to support students of medicine, as they can remotely watch live surgeries
by specialists, as well as facilitate collaboration during research and support
remote consultations.
In Brazil,
remote consultation can only be used in the form of a second doctor (or
specialist) appraisal to support an in-site doctor in the diagnostic. Some
Brazilian hospitals and universities are already implementing video
conferencing, which is the case of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco
(UFPE) that has implemented an immersive room from Polycom to enhance medical
student surgery training. Another example is the Hospital Israelita Albert
Einstein in São Paulo, which uses Cisco’s mobile healthcare telemedicine
solution, developed for remote consults, virtual care and medical education.
The technology provides communication between the intensive care unit and emergency
room at the Dr. Moysés Deutsch Municipal Hospital and the Telemedicine Center
at Albert Einstein, both in São Paulo, to assist seriously ill patients if no
specialists are available at the public unit or if a second opinion is
required.
Mobility Makes
the Biggest Impact
Although the
mentioned technologies have huge potential to improve care, so far the big star
in IT in healthcare has been mobility. Mobile health has been a trendy
topic for a few years, and this hype can be justified not only because of its
benefits, but especially because of its huge potential reach. On the healthcare
institutions side, mobility can facilitate hospital’s staff access to content,
including drug reference and medical calculators, as well as providing enhanced
and simplified care when integrated with EMR. Due to its costs, mobile adoption
is happening mainly in leading hospitals in Brazil, such as Nossa Senhora das
Graças (Porto Alegre), which implemented Microsoft tablets equipped with a
hospital information system (HIS) from TOTVs, a large Brazilian software
provider. The tablets, integrated to the hospital’s applications, are enabled
to better track medication and vital information about patients using digital
records as well as to improve processes reliability and enhance patient care.
While there
are possibilities for mobile technologies in health institutions, it is in the
customer side that we may expect a major change. Applications dedicated to
monitor health conditions, vital signs, diets and exercises have been adopted
on a wide scale and can strongly benefit remote monitoring. In fact, to boost
the creation of applications, including healthcare ones, the Brazilian Ministry
of Communication funded the INOVaps program that rewards the 25 most innovative
public utility applications.
Mobile
phones can also be used to support care and increase knowledge in remote areas,
where health services coverage is still poor. For example, Telefonica Vivo
has created the Vivo Ligue Saúde service which, for just US$2 a week, provides
emergency and preventative guidance via mobile phone, with weekly healthcare
tips through text messages. The service already has 2.2 million clients.
Big Data
Remains Under-Explored
Much has
been said about the big data trend, with magazines, newspapers, IT and
non-IT websites presenting it as a hot topic – and it really is. However in
Brazil the spread of awareness regarding big data benefits is only recent and
companies from all industries are therefore still in the process of
The
mentioned technologies, together with holography and3D bio-printing, among
others, are expected to nurture big enhancements in health processes. As the
Brazilian healthcare industry is taking its first step towards a
predictive, participatory and personalized care, the space for IT players in
this market is tremendous.