At the start of January, most people were relieved to say goodbye to 2020 and approach 2021 with a clean slate. Since the pandemic was confirmed in March 2020, it felt like we were faced with crisis after crisis. And one month into the new year, it seems as though wese are tackling many of the same challenges as last year.
One thing to be positive about is that we now have a better understanding of Covid-19 and the solutions that can help us get back to normal. More clarity provides a refreshing change from the endless uncertainty and unpredictability of 2020. As the head of a private healthcare company in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, I know that those in my sector have learnt a lot that will help us chart a path forward and, in some cases, identify where we can all improve.
From what we have seen so far this year, the introduction of new vaccines and treatments and their distribution around the world are likely to continue to dominate the global health agenda. As we move through 2021 and beyond, we can expect to benefit from the addition of another five to 10 new vaccines, which will be crucial in our efforts to fight transmission of the virus and return to more normal social interaction.
Several of these vaccines use a technology called mRNA, which trains the immune system directly with a single protein, instead of injecting a weakened live or killed virus, which is how traditional vaccines work. Prior to Covid-19, mRNA vaccines had never been licensed for use. Yet last month, two mRNA candidates won emergency approval from regulators in several countries. This approach will allow researchers to fast-track various stages of vaccine research and development, and could even help identify solutions for other diseases that may not have come about had it not been for the heightened urgency created by the pandemic.
Many healthcare professionals and policymakers hope that some of the lower-cost Covid-19 vaccines will become more readily available to developing countries. Global partnerships such as the Access to Covid-19 Tools Accelerator, a collaboration launched by the World Health Organisation and its partners, are helping to expedite development, production and equitable access to the vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics that the world needs.
The transparency of studies and data showing the results of vaccine trials will be critical to building trust and confidence in medical innovation around the world, as will our success in treating those infected. As we continue to learn more about the virus as well as our immune response to it, we can hope to see the mortality rate decrease throughout the year.
It seems unlikely that doctors will have a silver-bullet treatment in our arsenal any time soon. However, we should find that earlier, more effective interventions result in fewer hospitalisations and ICU admissions. This will help reduce the impact of Covid-19 patients on overwhelmed healthcare systems.
Another way to free up hospital beds for patients suffering from serious Covid-19 symptoms or any other critical illnesses is to deliver non-critical care outside of hospitals. Throughout 2020, my company’s long-term care and rehabilitation facilities accepted more than 350 non-critical care patients from hospitals, proving that moving some patients outside of hospitals and into more appropriate and comfortable settings can help achieve greater capacity.
This pandemic also accelerated an existing trend of providing healthcare where the patient is located, as patients increasingly used telemedicine to interact with clinicians for consultations and to monitor chronic diseases from the safety of their homes. It’s likely that these practices will continue as long as Covid-19 transmission risks remain and wearables medical devices become more widely used.
All in all, this could make a broader range of data accessible to healthcare providers and patients, which would be an improvement on the fragmented data sets scattered across various hospitals and facilities. The consolidation of data will help patients play a greater role in their own treatment plans while allowing care providers to plan more customised and effective treatments.
On a national level, regional data centres can compile these enormous sets of anonymised patient data from sophisticated electronic medical records for entire populations. Data on this scale will provide health authorities with a clearer picture of population health, allowing them to tailor healthcare policies and preventive programmes more effectively, leading to better overall health outcomes at significantly lower cost for the general population.
Healthcare providers will watch closely to see how these trends play out over 2021. While 2020 taught us that predicting the future may be a futile endeavour, what we can be sure of is that the pandemic has manifested itself in every part of our lives, exposing inefficiencies and systems that weren’t working before. Let’s hope that this provides an opportunity for healthcare providers to deliver even more successful care over the year ahead.
Dr Howard Podolsky is the group chief executive of Cambridge Medical and Rehabilitation Centre
