Together with Cisco, ACCESS Health hosted a roundtable discussion on harnessing digital health for achieving universal health care (UHC) on 18 January 2021. Participants from government ministries handling health and/or technology, private sector developers of eHealth solutions, and academics working in this field provided multifaceted perspectives on the challenges at hand in more fully realizing digital health's benefits. The roundtable was structured around ten action points that ACCESS Health identified in a 2019 white paper about how digital technology is key to achieving UHC in Southeast Asia. The roundtable contextualized these challenges to the Philippines, such as establishing a clear national mandate for eHealth, ring-fencing public funding for it, and harnessing the private sector to help overcome inequitable access to healthcare using digital platforms. The event was well-timed given that a number of bills are being deliberated in Congress concerning eHealth. Also, private sector innovations have emerged in recent months like GoHealth for microinsurance and HealthNow for an all-in-one health app. Appropriate next steps concerning the ten action points were identified by participants that promise to improve the Philippines' eHealth infrastructure over the coming years.
ACCESS Health Philippines: A Look Back On 2020 And Look Ahead To 2021
With the pandemic’s onset, 2020 became a year of transition for the Philippines office. The introduction of quarantines necessitated a move online for nearly all our projects and activities. Nevertheless, our work continued and we were able to complete a number of critical projects, including a study on the country’s readiness for vertical integration of health services for a development lender; a multi-country survey on integrated care for chronic diseases for the Asia-Pacific Observatory; and a Child Protection Forum for the Consuelo Foundation. Offline, we continued work with the TB Reach project, which opened a second clinic in Mandaluyong City to extend the availability of private sector TB care complementing the broader national effort. 2021 has started promisingly. We are continuing work on an evaluation of the Magna Carta of Public Health Workers and a study on trends in bilateral health cooperation for the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development. Also in the process of completion is a study appraising health researchers’ use of research-based evidence to influence public health policy for the Global Development Network. Moreover, the local office is now becoming better integrated with ACCESS Health’s wider Southeast Asian initiatives. These include research ascertaining the status of eHealth in the Philippines for multilateral development agencies and technology solution providers. Also, we are working with a pharmaceutical concern to place emphasis on bone health. By engaging in these projects and activities, we aim to expand our capabilities to better meet the requirements of existing and prospective partners.
ACCESS Health Southeast: A Look Back On 2020 And Look Ahead To 2021
2020 was a year of adapting, learning, and refining for the Southeast Asia office. With our unique regional perspective, we spent the year showing how the tenet we’ve touted – resilient, digitally enabled, affordable healthcare – is indeed the key to outlasting devastations such as Covid-19. Internally, we pivoted from our busy travel schedules to focusing on tailoring our programs and messaging to respond to pandemic challenges, strengthening our partnerships and impact in ASEAN, forming and maintaining relationships, and reflecting on strategies and business processes. We’ve grown from an office of seven to a vibrant group of 14, based in both Singapore and Philippines. This past year, the Singapore office merged with the ACCESS Health Philippines office, deepening our ties with governments and multinational organizations in the region. We hired consultants in Nepal, Vietnam, and Malaysia, keeping pace with our Fintech for Health projects and expanding our reach and knowledge base in these markets. We redesigned and relaunched our Startup Alliance program, mentoring and connecting more than ten startups in the region. We’ve hosted or spoke on panels for over 25 webinars and events centered around our focus areas of health systems strengthening, digital health, and innovative financing. We’ve posted five Fintech for Health blogs, co-authored three thought pieces, and published one report in partnership with the Singapore government. In 2021, we will add to our consulting staff, publish our Fintech for Health whitepaper, expand and build our current programs, and take forward new initiatives already in the pipeline. Looking back on this year, we recognize the growth that took place and are proud of the work we’ve accomplished despite the many challenges. We look forward to what 2021 has in store for us, our clients, and those populations around the world who drive our passion to do more.
ACCESS Health Philippines opens its 2nd Tuberculosis Clinic in Mandaluyong City
ACCESS Health Philippines, together with its implementing partner Innovations for Community Health, successfully opened its second Kalinga Health Hub in Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila on November 25, 2020. This clinic will serve as a high-quality diagnosis and treatment facility featuring a centralized laboratory connected to a network of private providers. This scale-up project, which received a grant from StopTB Partnership, aims to replicate the successes from its pilot implementation site in Marikina City by helping increase TB case detection and notification rates with private sector involvement. Likewise, it will deepen public-private cooperation and harness economies of scale through having two sites. The launch was attended by partners from both the local and national government as well as agencies including the Mandaluyong City Health Department and Department of Health. ACCESS Health Philippines was represented by its Program Manager, Miggy Marasigan, and Program Associate Olan Junio. To mark the momentous occasion, Country Director of ACCESS Health Southeast Asia Sejal Mistry delivered a pre-recorded message to thank our partner institutions and organizations.
Apply For The ACCESS Health International Startup Alliance Accelerator Program
ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia aims to bring digital health and digital finance players together to provide holistic services to patients and growth opportunities for startups. The Startup Alliance is an ecosystem of startups, corporations and investors that are at the forefront of healthcare innovation in Asia. The Startup Alliance catalyzes partnerships to make sure that innovations don't remain in the lab but are taken to the real world and to scale. Through this platform, startups have opportunities to build new growth engines supported by cross-industry mentorship, learning with other industry startups, business development opportunities, and pitching for investment. Join our Accelerator Program converging digital health with digital finance - Apply Before 20th November 2020 Eligibility Criteria:1) Pre-Series A to Series B startups2) Focus on Southeast Asia markets3) Digital health startups wanting to provide digital finance solutions and vice versa For more information, click here.
Enhancing Child Protection In The Philippines
In conjunction with the Consuelo Foundation-a nonprofit addressing children's wellbeing-ACCESS Health Philippines organized a Child Protection Research Forum to appraise the current state of child protection in the country. The Forum involved a wide range of participants, including academics, child advocates, health professionals, law enforcers and legal scholars. In October, a final report was published detailing a multifaceted challenge from the Philippine context, including a range of emotional, mental, physical and social considerations. Especially given the challenges created by Covid-19 today-not being able to physically attend school, parents having challenges making ends meet amid mass unemployment, and living close together for extended time frames-this forum was remarkably salient in a young country where a third of the population is 14 years old or younger. The report also reflects the exchange of ideas by this diverse group that generated actionable plans for improving the status of child protection in the Philippines. Follow-up actions include the set-up of a research and learning network to encourage further multidisciplinary knowledge-sharing evident during the event, which was patterned on ACCESS Health's participation in the Joint Learning Network. You can view a recording of the Research Forum here.
Preparing For A Global COVID 19 Vaccine Deployment: Health Futures Webinar
Media headlines are documenting the race for a Covid-19 vaccine. The scientific, political and media discourse is centered around questions of "When?" and "How good?" What is missing from this discussion is the question, "For whom?" How will the global public health community and how national healthcare systems equitably deploy a vaccine to 7 billion people once it is available?" Many health systems are not equipped for what will be the largest vaccine deployment in history. Successfully vaccinating most of the global community will require not just manufacturing and financing the vaccine; it will require that healthcare systems or governments procure adequate numbers of syringes, that governments communicate the need for and benefits to mass vaccination, and that enough frontline healthcare workers are appropriately trained to give vaccines. This webinar, hosted by the ACCESS Health Southeast Asia team, is a discussion on what is needed from the public and private sectors to support healthcare systems for vaccination on this scale. Speakers:Hsien-Hsien Lei, CEO, AmCham Singapore, Adjunct Associate Professor, NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public HealthEmmanuelle Quentin, Regional Marketing Director, Pharmaceutical systems, BDChris Morgan, Senior Technical Advisor, Immunization, JhpiegoEduardo Banzon, Principal Health Specialist, Asian Development Bank Moderator:Adrienne Mendenhall, Director of Business Development, ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia Please click here to view the webinar.
Discovering the world of “Fintech for health” or digital financial solutions webinar (Spanish)
On October the 8th, Sejal Mistry, Country Director ACCESS Health International Southeast Asia spoke on a webinar hosted by IFC and Portal Findev in Latin America on how fintech offers a new way forward in breaking barriers to healthcare access. During this online seminar, we understood that digital financial solutions for health (Fintech for health) start from identifying pain points on the patients’ experience map to allow them to access and pay without friction and in an innovative way for services such as consultations, vaccination, specialized medical treatment, medicines, etc. Please click hereto view the webinar in Spanish.
Two New Books From Chair and President William A. Haseltine
ACCESS Health Chair and President William A. Haseltine today released two new books-an autobiography to inspire a life devoted to science and filled with purpose, and breaking commentary on COVID-19. In My Lifelong Fight Against Disease: From Polio and AIDS to COVID-19, Dr. Haseltine tells his life story for the first time. The book includes his accounts of facing devastating public health crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlights exhilarating moments of medical discovery. In writing the story of his wide ranging career, Dr. Haseltine's goals are simple: to encourage the next generation to make their own significant contribution to human life, and for all readers to appreciate science as a humanistic enterprise. A compulsively readable and fast-paced insider's account of some of the most brilliant medical breakthroughs in modern history, My Lifelong Fight Against Disease is a candid, evocative, and ultimately revelatory exploration into what it means to make science your life. The book is available for purchase on Amazon. As Dr. Haseltine was working on the final chapters of his autobiography, rumors of a new pneumonia-like illness coming from Wuhan, China were just beginning to emerge. COVID-19 has gone on to infect at least thirty five million people worldwide and has killed more than one million. After a lifetime spent in science, medicine and pursuing better public health, Dr. Haseltine is once again logging eighteen hour days battling a new and still somewhat unknown disease. His opinions on the course of the pandemic are sought regularly by major broadcast news networks and print media. The COVID Commentaries is a collection of Dr. Haseltine's writings, research and interviews on COVID-19. It is a Living eBook, updated regularly with new information on the disease and our response as it unfolds. It is organized into four parts, spread across two volumes. The first contains his published commentaries and social media posts on the outbreak, providing a quick, spur of the moment glimpse into his thinking day to day. The second section includes his interviews with scientists, economists, parents, grandparents and children that have informed his thinking and understanding of the virus and its disease. The third part provides links to his media interviews and mentions in news articles. The final section is a robust assemblage of links to COVID-related news, medical and scientific research papers, webinars and online resources from other organizations. Dr. Haseltine's A Family Guide to COVID: Questions & Answers for Parents, Grandparents & Children and his subsequent book, A COVID Back To School Guide: Questions and Answers for Parents and Students, were the first books to be published as Living eBooks. They are updated regularly as more is discovered about the disease and the nature of the outbreak changes. When a reader purchases a copy of the book, either in print or online, you will receive a special passcode that will give you online access to every subsequent edition of the book, as it is released. You can purchase a copy of the COVID Commentaries on Amazon: Volume I, Volume II.
The Rockefeller Foundation and ACCESS Health International Launch a Report Uncovering the Role of Digital Technology in Tackling Covid-19
The Rockefeller Foundation and ACCESS Health International today launched a new report on the important role digital technology can play in response to pandemics like Covid-19. The report, titled Tackling Covid-19 Pandemic through Integrating Digital Technology and Public Health: Linking Experiences in China to the World, offers governments and business leaders around the world key insights from China's experiences in tackling Covid-19, with the aim of further enabling effective responses against the virus. With support from The Rockefeller Foundation, ACCESS Health International conducted a systematic study, documenting and sharing both policy initiatives and technology solutions used to support the public health system in China throughout the pandemic. Dr. Chang Liu, Regional Director for Greater China and Southeast Asia, ACCESS Health International stated, "China was the first country impacted by the novel virus and is now the first market in the world to reopen its economy following the outbreak. Digital technology has been critical to the country's success, as well as the important role played by those in the public and private sectors. We hope that this report and China's experience will help in other markets, especially those still suffering from the pandemic." The report offers an in-depth understanding of the actions and strategies implemented by the government, the role digital technology played, the technologies used, and the impact made across six outbreak response categories including fast response, epidemiological studies, diagnosis and treatment, supportive activities, long-term management and comprehensive disease control system. Deepali Khanna, Managing-Director of The Rockefeller Foundation's Asia Regional Office said, "As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to devastate nations across the world, this report is an attempt to document and share experiences of effective strategies in the fight against the global pandemic. Most strategies have pointed to the immense importance of incorporating data and technology into our public health systems and emergency response plans. The Rockefeller Foundation has been focusing on mitigating the impacts of the crisis by supporting countries to build technology innovations, expand smart testing, and leverage data insights to direct the right interventions to the right people at the right time." Findings in the report show that applications of digital technology in Covid-19 pandemic responses successfully helped mitigate and overcome some of the greatest challenges including how to quickly diagnose and treat those who are ill, how to prevent ongoing transmission of the virus, and how to manage this disease and other infectious diseases like it over the long term. The report includes twelve case studies to illustrate digital solutions in different scenarios, and documents key success factors for each case study across three levels: government, social and enterprise. To download the report, please visit: HERE.