SYDNEY, April 7 (Xinhua) -- The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed how health systems worldwide would benefit from a "tech revolution," according to a report released by the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (ATSE) on Tuesday.
Embracing technologies such as remote consulting, wearable monitors and full digitisation of health records would help those on the frontlines deal with not only current and future pandemics, but also day to day treatment of chronic health issues and an aging population, it said.
"Even before the coronavirus pandemic, our year-long examination of the health system identified the changes needed to meet rising demands, particularly in regard to chronic and age-related diseases," ATSE President Professor Hugh Bradlow said.
Online health appointments, smart devices that check temperature and oxygen levels, e-health records, digital disease surveillance, and modelling that pinpoints regions showing signs of outbreaks are all new technologies which would have been invaluable in the face of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
"In a fully digitised healthcare system, governments and the medical community would have been able to identify and monitor cases in real time, using advanced data analysis to identify disease outbreaks by looking for spikes in the reporting of symptoms," Bradlow said.
"This data could be used to predict pandemic risk, target quarantining measures, and allocate medical resources for diagnosis and treatment where they're most needed."
Online consultations have been adopted in a limited capacity in a number of countries including Australia, and could be more widely implemented to drastically reduce the risk of virus transmission for healthcare workers.
ATSE urged experts in business, government and research to find the best solutions available through digital and data technologies but added that a critical component is also the education of health workers on how to use new technologies as well.
