Thailand’s ‘global medical hub’ dream gets reality check from new health index

[webfact]

Thailand’s ‘global medical hub’ dream gets reality check from new health index

By The Nation

 

 

Thailand needs to do more work if it wants to become a regional leader in personalised healthcare, according to a new study.

 

The Asia-Pacific Personalised Health Index is a data-driven policy tool created by multinational healthcare giant Roche to measure the readiness of health systems to adopt personalised healthcare – “enabling the right care to be tailored to the right person at the right time”.

 

The index, which is part of Roche’s FutureProofing Healthcare initiative led by 15 experts across Asia-Pacific, should be of interest to policymakers currently working to transform Thailand into a global medical hub.

 

Topping the index ranking of 11 countries is Singapore’s health system, which scored highest on 27 indicators of personalised health. Thailand was ranked 7th, ahead of Malaysia, China, India and Indonesia. The index also covers Australia, South Korea, Taiwan and New Zealand.

 

The company said it uses public data supplemented with input from health authorities to offer a picture of local, national, and regional strengths and needs. The aim, said Roche, was to enable data-driven decision-making for future health systems that are fit for purpose.

 

Singapore scored top for its high levels of digital maturity, comprehensive national strategies, strong digital infrastructure and innovation capacity. Taiwan (2nd), Japan (3rd) and Australia (4th) also performed well in overall readiness, said Roche. However, Thailand and other lower-scoring territories faced challenges of urban-rural disparities and building digital infrastructure, said the company.

 

Table: Overall Asia Pacific Personalised Health Index 2020 performance

 

“Personalised healthcare has the potential to improve the lives of millions of people across Asia-Pacific,” said Jeremy Lim, director of Global Health and associate prof at the National University of Singapore, who helped develop the index.

 

Hailing the creation of digital health solutions like tele-medicine during the Covid-19 crisis, he said more work was needed across the region to realise these benefits.

 

“The Personalised Health Index builds a clearer picture of the current readiness of health systems and enables countries to build on their strengths, identify key areas of opportunity for improvement and identify best practice from other countries on individual measures.

 

It helps jump start conversations about what action is needed today to shape resilient, personalised and sustainable health systems that work better for future generations,” said Lim.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/lifestyle/30402055

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2021-02-01

 

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[RotBenz8888]

Part of TATs fantasy world.

[KarenBravo]

Easy. Bring down the prices. The true medical hub for routine medical procedures is India.

For more serious stuff, it's Singapore.

[ThailandRyan]

Thailand aspires to take over the title of Medical Hub and lead the region in vaccine production based upon the recent moves it is making with Siam Bio Science, and building a new lab at Chula University.  I think Anutin wants to be the head of all....

[FritsSikkink]

1 hour ago, KarenBravo said:

Easy. Bring down the prices. The true medical hub for routine medical procedures is India.

For more serious stuff, it's Singapore.

You don't improve "levels of digital maturity, comprehensive national strategies, strong digital infrastructure and innovation capacity." with lowering the prices.

[Venom]

Toxic levels of 2.5 PM air pollution during tourist season might also play a factor. Now that the word is out, who in the right mind would come to Thailand for medical treatment much less a family holiday? ????????????

[Jimbo2014]

How do you become a "Medical Hub" with air pollution breaking all records across the country.  Of all of Thailands insane fantasies this has to be one of the greatest.  Medically vulnerable people should not even consider entering a country with persistent 180 to 200 AQI.  Until the government decides to do something about the rampant crop burning I would advise all to stay away.

[RichardColeman]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

Hailing the creation of digital health solutions like tele-medicine during the Covid-19 crisis, he said more work was needed across the region to realise these benefits.

Tele-medicine ? Does that mean TAT may come up with a slogan of 'Wonderful Thailand, Call us' ? 

[paulbj2]

I broke my arm rather badly whilst in Chiang Mai and I needed an operation to screw and plate it back together

 

Shortly after being discharged by the very expensive private hospital, I returned to Europe. On the way home, at Suvarnabhumi, my arm broke again - the plating and screwing effected by the Chiang Mai hospital had failed to hold and I spent the 3 day journey home to Luxembourg (via Sri Lanka, London and Zurich) in absolute agony. On landing in Luxembourg, I went straight to Accident + Emergency where they X-rayed the arm and explained that it had re-broken; something I had already guessed as there was a very obvious kink in the bone!

 

Eventually, I saw 4 different orthopaedic surgeons in Luxembourg and all expressed the same opinion: that the surgery performed in Thailand was catastrophically ineptly done. One specialist described the Thai surgeon as "an absolute butcher". Another said, if the operation had been done in Europe, he would advise me to sue and make a complaint to the body who licensed surgeons.

 

Thanks to the "excellence" of the Thai surgeon's work, I am left with a mild permanent handicap in the broken arm and frequent residual pain.

 

One of the reasons I considered Thailand as a retirement destination was the world class reputation of their medical care, I would now consider it as 3rd world class!

[Srikcir]

Japan placed 3rd.

Only 11 health systems were evaluated.

The Philippines was not included. Odd.

[bluedoc]

1 hour ago, paulbj2 said:

I broke my arm rather badly whilst in Chiang Mai and I needed an operation to screw and plate it back together

 

Shortly after being discharged by the very expensive private hospital, I returned to Europe. On the way home, at Suvarnabhumi, my arm broke again - the plating and screwing effected by the Chiang Mai hospital had failed to hold and I spent the 3 day journey home to Luxembourg (via Sri Lanka, London and Zurich) in absolute agony. On landing in Luxembourg, I went straight to Accident + Emergency where they X-rayed the arm and explained that it had re-broken; something I had already guessed as there was a very obvious kink in the bone!

 

Eventually, I saw 4 different orthopaedic surgeons in Luxembourg and all expressed the same opinion: that the surgery performed in Thailand was catastrophically ineptly done. One specialist described the Thai surgeon as "an absolute butcher". Another said, if the operation had been done in Europe, he would advise me to sue and make a complaint to the body who licensed surgeons.

 

Thanks to the "excellence" of the Thai surgeon's work, I am left with a mild permanent handicap in the broken arm and frequent residual pain.

 

One of the reasons I considered Thailand as a retirement destination was the world class reputation of their medical care, I would now consider it as 3rd world class!

Where did you get the ‘World class medical care’ info from?

[hotchilli]

9 hours ago, webfact said:

The company said it uses public data supplemented with input from health authorities to offer a picture of local, national, and regional strengths and needs. The aim, said Roche, was to enable data-driven decision-making for future health systems that are fit for purpose.

G.I.G.O

[koolkarl]

I had hernia surgery done at Ram in Chiang Mai and the surgery has to be done again, at a western hospital.

Also was seeing an ophthalmologist , for several years, in Chiang Mai for eye pressure.  She recommended laser

surgery to alleviate problem.  I had a second opinion done by a specialist in Canada and my eye pressures are normal

and certainly no laser surgery is needed.  Both of these doctors in Chiang Mai were trained at CM University.

 

[J Town]

11 hours ago, koolkarl said:

I had hernia surgery done at Ram in Chiang Mai and the surgery has to be done again, at a western hospital.

Also was seeing an ophthalmologist , for several years, in Chiang Mai for eye pressure.  She recommended laser

surgery to alleviate problem.  I had a second opinion done by a specialist in Canada and my eye pressures are normal

and certainly no laser surgery is needed.  Both of these doctors in Chiang Mai were trained at CM University.

 

The FIRST thing I do when visiting a doctor or dentist for the first time is check out their credentials. If they haven't been trained in a western style university, I politely exit stage left.