10th June 2020: “Are we ready for the new reality webinar related to healthcare sector” webinar was organised by UOW Malaysia with Associate Prof Dr Brian Wong, Head of School of Business, UOW Malaysia KDU University College as moderator.

Together with me on the panel was Lee Yee Keng from KPMG Malaysia and Norzifiah Aziz of Ramsay Sime Darby Health Care.

We had 1 hour 20 minutes discussion on various topics related to our readiness to the new reality in healthcare.

I had enumerated some salient points in my talk during this webinar and some ideas of mine after the webinar:

• Digitalisation has been a new medium for many businesses. Its equally important in healthcare but with some restrictions in clinical consults. Healthcare providers welcome this new paradigm in meeting patients.
• Medical Tourism has to recover fast as the physical presence of medical tourist within our shores is important both in terms of healthcare delivery and economical value.
• Our future preparedness in managing pandemics is very important as Co-Vid 19 has taught us a lot of unknown gaps in our system. Malaysia did very well as we learnt quickly from the other nations. We had initiated early mitigation and that was strategically accurate.
• The importance of having enough critical care facility in anticipation of huge number of very sick patients during a pandemic must be considered in future planning.
• Hospitals worldwide should have  contingency plans to convert wards or other areas of the facility into Intensive Care Units within a short time in pandemics. Databases to locate essential live saving equipments should be made easily available and updated.
• Public Private Partnership is key in managing pandemics in countries with dual healthcare system