Beyond the Future of Medics

The healthcare industry has been thriving so fast on their visions and inventions to ensure that people can ‘live longer’ or ‘sustain.’ Medics (consist of doctors, medical students, nurses, and anyone who is involved in medicine) as a crucial part of healthcare industries need to understand how access to healthcare should be efficient, inclusive, interoperable, and connected 24/7. The notion could be done by applying technology within the healthcare industry. As simple as the cyber-interconnected relation between medics and patients (e.g., halodoc) and smartwatches (with heart rate apps) are examples of healthcare-related technology that exists.[i][ii] Visions on the medic-patient interconnectivity are that patients are ‘digitally monitored’ where medics could access patient’s ‘big data.’[iii] This connectivity also applies to the smartwatch technology, where a real-time ‘data’ of people’s heart rate could be accessed by medics — exclusively and consensual.[iv] The visions that are mentioned by Tas, Avkiran, Conran, Moore-Gillon, and others as medics who wishes and predict the healthcare industry.

A big question then appears after the problems are stated, how does the future of healthcare depend on the work of tech-savvy medics? Reflecting on how the predictions are focusing on the invention of technology and interconnectivity, it is needed for medics to apply the perspective of the tech-based invention on solving healthcare problems — considering that tech-inventions are still controversial when it comes to the invention of robots or automations that will ‘replace’ medics and patient’s data issues. Medics are bound (and forced) to follow the rapid development of technology in multiple sectors to understand technology in both utilising and creating. Therefore, medics are not only ‘medics’ per se, but they are also future inventors of sophisticated solutions on solving healthcare problems.

Having Multiple Job Description and Skills is Inevitable

In the era of rapid transformation, combining various skill sets are needed to be present and compete within the labour market, in this case, medics. Functions in healthcare have somehow become more complex due to the industrial revolution 4.0. Bringing up the fact that the labour market is expected to follow and be capable of applying their new skills in the industry, it is considered an extra ‘privilege’ to be able or even to recognise new tech-talent to succeed in the digital era.[v][vi] McKinsey Digital has stated several important sets for industries and companies’ tech-talent such as 1.) Experience designers and engineers; 2.)Scrum masters and agility coaches; 3.) Product owners; 4.) Full-stack architects; 5.) Next-gen machine-learning engineers; and 6.) “DevOps” engineers.[vii] By combining the sets that are stated above and the understanding of multiple skills that are needed by future labours, the border of knowledge within ‘professions’ are blurred out.

Ensuring every part of the society to understand the skills in this increasingly digital and globalised world is critical to promote the inclusivity of labour markets and to spur innovation, productivity, and growth.[viii] As inclusivity itself can’t be forced in just a second, gradual yet contextual learning needs to be applied to every single part of the society.

Future Technology Driven Medics

Not only inventing robots, but making sure that the healthcare industry provides the best (in terms of efficiency, inclusivity, interoperability, and connectedness) service by utilising the advancement of technology.[ix]  The concept of ‘technopreneurship’ itself is believed to play an important part of the labours in the digital era.[x] Therefore, by understanding the concept of ‘technopreneurship’ and the tech disruption in the healthcare industry, medics are forced to have multiple jobs at once.

It draws that the tech advancement expects medics to heal diseases, inventing new tangible ideas to support the world of healthcare, and understand how the technology works, which all will end on contributing to the advancement of society. Knowing that automation, algorithm, and mechanics are not the only solution to societal problems (which includes healthcare) is essential to create more tech-anthropocentric solutions in healthcare. The technological disruption doesn’t mean a total washout of the anthroposphere into the technosphere, but more of a massive collaboration of human and technology.

As the explanation above is concentrated on skills, a much more contextual realisation is needed to specify problems and solutions. Indonesia faces several issues in the healthcare service such as: 1.) manual paper medical bureaucracy; 2.) enclosed and dispersed health data; 3.) The low quality medics; 4.) slow medical service.[xi] The problems stated are best addressed by Indonesian medics while utilising tech advancement which brings into several solutions: 1.) paperless health bureaucracy (digital health record); 2.) open and interoperable medical data; 3.) Additional training(s) for medics. Therefore, contextualising skills to solve contextual problems is needed in the healthcare industry.

Author: Anaq Duanaiko
Editor: Treviliana Eka Putri

Read more article written by Anaq Duanaiko

^[i] halodoc. Tanya Dokter – Halodoc. [online] Available at: https://www.halodoc.com/tanya-dokter [Accessed 27 Jan. 2020].

^[ii] Feiam, A. 15 Best Heart Rate Monitor Watches in 2020. [online] The Trend Spotter. Available at: https://www.thetrendspotter.net/best-heart-rate-monitor-watch/ [Accessed 27 Jan. 2020].

^[iii]Tas, J., Avkiran, M., Conran, S., Moore-Gillon, J., Trigueros, S., Burns, E. and Johnson, P. (2020). Future Health: ​​Seven Visions of the Future of Healthcare. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/future-health/healthcare-predictions/ [Accessed 27 Jan. 2020].

^[iv] ibid.

^[v]Shekar, Y. (2019). Digital world: Emergence and relevance of new skills. [online] Peoplematters.in. Available at: https://www.peoplematters.in/blog/workskills/digital-world-emergence-and-relevance-of-new-skills-23464?utm_source=peoplematters&utm_medium=interstitial&utm_campaign=learnings-of-the-day [Accessed 27 Jan. 2020].

^[vi]Bhen, S., Lau, L. and Sarrazin, H. (2016). The new tech talent you need to succeed in digital. [online] McKinsey & Company. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/the-new-tech-talent-you-need-to-succeed-in-digital [Accessed 27 Jan. 2020].

^[vii] ibid

^[viii] POLICY BRIEF ON THE FUTURE OF WORK: Skills for a Digital World. (2016). [online pdf] OECD. Available at: https://www.oecd.org/els/emp/Skills-for-a-Digital-World.pdf [Accessed 27 Jan. 2020].

^[ix] Permadi, D., Shabrina, F., & Rahyaputra, V. (2018). Menyongsong Kewirausahaan Digital Indonesia. UGM PRESS.

^[x] ibid

^[xi]Maulana, R. (2020). Peluang dan Hambatan Munculnya Pemain Baru Startup Kesehatan di Indonesia. [online] Id.techinasia.com. Available at: https://id.techinasia.com/peluang-startup-kesehatan-tahun-2020 [Accessed 27 Jan. 2020].