Andrew Roberts, Chief Information Officer at Clinix Health Group, on How Technology can Transform Healthcare for the Better, at Healthcare Innovation Summit Africa 2023 hosted by IT News Africa. #HISA2023 #Healthcare #Healthtech #HealthInnovation

1. How technology can transform
healthcare for the better
Challenges and Opportunities
HISA 2023
Gallagher Estate
Presented by Andrew Roberts
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2. About me
• Chief Information Officer at Clinix Health Group.
• Accredited Professional Chief Information Officer (CIO.Pr), a Senior Member of
The Institute of IT Professionals South Africa (IITPSA), a member of the
Professional Member Project Management South Africa (PMSA) and Mentor at
the Black Umbrellas.
• Qualifications include BSc Honours in Computer Science, from Rhodes University
Grahamstown and an Executive MBA from Quantic University, from Washington
DC, USA.
• Over 23 years’ experience in Corporate Governance, IT management and fulfilling
the role of a digital transformation specialist.
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3. Facts
• What is the population of South Africa today?
o 60,65 million (2023)
o 69.0% of the population is urban (41,711,727 people in 2023)
o The median age in South Africa is 27.6 years.
(World Population Prospects: The 2022 Revision)
• How many people in South Africa have access to private healthcare in 2023?
o 15.8% (9.7M) South Africans are members of medical aid schemes that have access to private medical care.
(Statistica, Sept 2023)
• How many medical schemes exist in South Africa?
o Decreased from 144 in 2000 to 76 in 2020.
o Voluntary amalgamations mainly drive the trend in the consolidation of medical schemes.
o The overall number of schemes in 2020 was 76, consisting of 18 open schemes and 58 restricted schemes.
(Council for Medical Schemes, 2023)
• How many medical aid schemes (in South Africa) offer lifestyle rewards
o All of the 5 biggest medical aid schemes offer lifestyle rewards that are linked to measurable lifestyle and healthy living
o Digital platforms, IOT devices and lifestyle providers measure participation and health metrics used by medical aid schemes
to measure compliance to reward programs
(Medical aid quotes, 2023)
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4. Transforming Healthcare through tech (in 2023)
Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to improve
patient outcomes while controlling costs. In response, many
healthcare organizations are turning to digital technology to
support their transformation efforts.
Digital technology can help healthcare organizations to achieve
their goals in several ways:
1) Boosting patient engagement
2) Better decision-making
3) Automation & coordination
(Rice-Boshi, 2023) 4

5. Key themes in healthcare technology
Technology-led Healthcare Innovation
• Emerging technologies are worth investing in.
• Telemedicine, artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled medical devices, and blockchain electronic health records.
• The main goal of streamlining physicians’ work, optimizing systems, improving patient outcomes, reducing human error, and lowering costs through
amazing web and mobile experiences
Themes
1. The rise of on-demand healthcare (why patients want healthcare on their own schedule)
2. The importance of big data in healthcare
3. Treating patients with virtual reality
4. The growth of wearable medical devices
5. Predictive healthcare
6. The wonders of artificial intelligence
7. Blockchain and the promise of better electronic health records
(Stoumpos, A. 2023).
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Lower rate of medication errors
Facilitating Preventive Care
More Accurate Staffing
47% research doctors
38% research hospital and medical facilities
77% book medical appointments

6. Challenges
1. Global Nursing shortage
There is now a greater dependency on Agency staff.
Prior to the pandemic, the global shortage of nurses was estimated at 5.9 million nurses.
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) (2021) projects that over 13 million nurses worldwide are required to bridge the gap in the
nursing shortage by 2030.
The C19 pandemic exacerbated the existing nurse supply shortfall and has forced rapid and “emergency” policy responses to try to
increase nurse supply, at the system level, in all countries (Buchan et al., 2022).
(Jester, R. May 2023)
2. IT Literacy amongst Nursing and Administration Staff
Nurses focus first and foremost on caring of patients. Systems and technology are thus not easy to
introduce and the discipline of using digital-first patient healthcare is met with resistance.
3. Connectivity to remote hospitals
Loadshedding, disruption to carriers, more extreme weather events, latency on Satlinks all create
challenges building reliable redundancy poses significant challenges in SA.
4. Limited appetite for substantial investment into IT
Rand depreciation, lack of appetite to invest with questionable ROI with the introduction of the NHI.
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7. Opportunities - Digital-first healthcare initiatives
• Some (now) commonplace technology initiatives in hospitals
• outpatient telemedicine,
• predictive & AI- driven diagnosis tools to assist GPs and Specialists,
• automation of in-hospital patient movements (with remote-family portal
tracking, medical aid scheme integration for pre-auths and real-time auth-
amendments LOS,
• Adv pharmaceutical stock management, including MRP, mobile- and theatre-
billing, chronic med automation,
• patient health record with bedside monitoring integration, gases-tracing,
radiology, pathology and analytics, electronic patient chart (incl
optimised nurse, doctor and admin portals).
• Similarly, medical insurance and schemes prescribe and
promote more health-conscious lifestyles to reduce the
burden of chronic illness and dreaded diseases.
• Digital IOT devices to enable healthy-lifestyle and provide
preventative-measures for improved health 7

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9. References
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Appleby, C. Hendricks, H. Wurz, J. Shudes, C. Chang, C. Shukla, M. (October 2021). From a buzzword to an imperative
for health systems. Deloitte Insights: Digital transformation.
Jester, R. Int J Orthop Trauma Nurs. (May 2023). Global shortage of nurses. 101018. Published online 2023 Mar 24. doi:
10.1016/j.ijotn.2023.101018. PMCID: PMC10038672. PMID: 37041090.
Panchal, B. (October, 2023). Digital Transformation: A Complete Guide to Digital Transformation in Healthcare.
Reddy, M. (October 2023). Digital Transformation in Healthcare in 2023: 7 Key Trends.
Rice-Boshi, M. (May 2, 2023). Digital transformation in healthcare: past, present, and future. blog
Stoumpos, A. Kitsios, F. Talias, MA. Wang, Z. Lam, L. Kor, P. (February 2023). Digital Transformation in Healthcare:
Technology Acceptance and Its Applications. Int J Environ Res Public Health 3407. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20043407 PMCID:
PMC9963556. PMID: 36834105