Skip to main content
ITIJ

Main navigation

  • Latest
  • Magazine
  • Service Directory
  • Awards
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe

Secondary

  • Travel Insurance
  • Company News
  • Assistance & Repatriation
  • Air Ambulance
  • Travel
  • Health
  • Hospitals & Healthcare
  • Insurtech
  • General Insurance
  • Latest
  • Magazine
  • Service Directory
  • Awards
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Travel Insurance
  • Company News
  • Assistance & Repatriation
  • Air Ambulance
  • Travel
  • Health
  • Hospitals & Healthcare
  • Insurtech
  • General Insurance

Breadcrumb

  1. Home
  2. Latest
  3. Latest Long Read
  4. ITIC APAC Review: Making digital health solutions work for the insurer and the customer

ITIC APAC Review: Making digital health solutions work for the insurer and the customer

Publishing Details

ITIC

15 Jun 2022
Mandy Langfield

Share

Making Digital health solutions work - ITIC APAC 2022

Asad Khan of Accenture and Dr Zubin Daruwalla of PwC Singapore on the ways in which health insurance companies could cater more effectively to consumer demands for digital health solutions

ITIJ are reporting on all the discussions taking place at ITIC APAC 2022 in Singapore. Read more of the reviews here

Dr Zubin Daruwall of PwC speaks at ITIC APAC 2022

Zubin Daruwalla, Health Industries Leader | PwC Singapore

Dr Daruwalla gave a clinician’s perspective on the need for the ongoing evolution of digital health solutions for insurers and patients. “Insurers,” he began, “traditional or otherwise, are at various levels of evolution across the digital journey, with most legacy players still lagging behind.” However, new partnerships between insurers and tech providers have paved the way for new solutions, despite certain barriers remaining in place.

Dr Daruwalla highlighted issues that hamper the design, development and implementation of digital solutions, including the lack of collaboration, acquisition and retention of talent, and the use of legacy systems. “Moreover,” he told ITIC attendees, “there is a fear and lack of understanding when it comes to using and sharing data.” Plus, he said, we need to start looking at things differently – it’s not about return on investment, it’s about return on experience. Furthermore, change has to be led from the top: “When initiatives are led from the ground up, they almost never work. There has to be buy in from the top.”

Moving on, Zubin looked at to how to solve the problems facing the industry. Several solutions were offered, including spending time understanding what patients and their doctors actually want, developing a strategy that is right for all players, and having a dedicated team with the right capabilities onboard.

“A number of categories of disruptive digital solutions now exist that health insurers could use,” Dr Daruwalla told the audience. These include chatbots/artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual and mixed reality customer experiences, connected devices, and cloud computing, which enables access to, and analysis of, big data.

Digital marketing was also noted to be of vital importance for insurers, with Dr Daruwalla pointing out that ‘optimising digital marketing has the ability to unlock significant impact for insurers’. “Yet, many insurers do not have a robust customer engagement strategy for digital channels or for required digital marketing, analytics, and marketing-technology capabilities,” he warned.

Digital solutions, he concluded, need to be about the consumer: focus on the patients and doctors using the systems; partner up with companies already offering solutions that work; ensure transparency in your operation; look after data carefully; and ensure that your solutions result in improved clinical outcomes.

Zubin left the audience with some final food for thought: “There are four main trends that we're seeing in the world when it comes to health. And I like to call them the 'ABCs'. There’s Artificial intelligence and intelligent Automation. There is Big data, and there is the Consumerism or patient Centricity. There is D for digital. But of all of these, the C is the biggest and most important one, and it must not be forgotten. Anything that we do, regardless of whether we’re a payer or provider, we have to think about it from the consumer from the patient angle. Let’s not reinvent the wheel.”

Dr. Zubin J Daruwalla, PwC Singapore

Dr. Zubin J Daruwalla is Health Industries Leader for PwC Singapore and leads the healthcare consulting team in the region, while remaining a practicing clinician with an interest in orthopaedics. With more than 20 years of experience in health, prior to working with PwC, Zubin’s career in healthcare provision from a surgeon’s standpoint has included working in both the public and private sectors across continents, including cities like Dublin, Oxford and Singapore. This has allowed him to gain experiences globally that help provide his clients insights that assist in solving their most complex challenges. Zubin has extensive experience in Digital Health, Medical Education, HealthTech and MedTech, and is a Consultant, Advisor and Mentor to a number of  start-ups and individuals in these spaces both locally as well as internationally. He holds Bachelors Honours Degrees in Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics & Gynaecology from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) as well as two Masters Degrees in Orthopaedic Surgery from the RCSI and National University Singapore (NUS). Having published extensively over the last decade with more than thirty publications to his name, including being an invited author for Economic Times, Zubin continues to write actively.

Zubin is active in the local community and is a big proponent of giving back, volunteering his time as an Executive Committee Member of the Dyslexia Association of Singapore and a practicing clinician at Tayka Medical Centre that provides medical care to the foreign worker community.

Some interesting things to know about Zubin include that he served in the Singapore Armed Forces as a paramedic, has been part of the Singapore National Team for Men’s Hockey, founded the Singapore Medical Society Ireland and volunteers his time for a number of good causes. Zubin is happily married and the proud owner of a beautiful chocolate brown Labrador, is a huge foodie, and loves spending time with his wife, family and friends. From a career perspective, Zubin believes that one should seek out a boss rather than a job and feels that good mentorship, strong leadership and teamwork are key ingredients to succeed. By having a few mentors with the above attributes at any one time, Zubin believes that one is likely to attain maximum benefit to their personal and professional development. A healthcare thought leader and strong believer in collaboration, Zubin hopes to bridge the gap between the technical and clinical sides within the realm of digital health.

Asad Khan of Accenture speaks at ITIC APAC 2022

Asad Khan

Managing Director, Health & Public Service

Accenture

Asad identified several trends in the provision of care related to technology; one of which is move from hospital to home for acuity care, which is driving down costs, and is going to help governments and insurers to reach their goals of providing value-based care. “The hospital of the future is not going to be the hospital we see now,” he told attendees. “It’s going to be probably a command centre, a C3 type of place where doctors are monitoring the patients remotely. The moment the doctor and the patient show up the hospital, the cost goes up.”

Another technological trend influencing healthcare is what he termed ‘the precision medicine revolution’ – the focus on genomes – although this will inevitably result in concerns about data privacy and what insurers are going to do with the data could be concerning for the patients.

Hybrid care models, Asad continued, saying ‘consumers are demanding care on their own terms, where they want it, how they want it’. Other issues technology could help to solve include the global shortage of healthcare staff, an ageing population, healthcare equity, and personalisation of healthcare services. For insurers, it’s about partnering with companies offering the services that can truly benefit their members, providing customer-centric information and recommendations and using technology that provides an immersive experience.

Returning to genomes, Asad used the example of technology pushing medicine forward, showing that 23andme used the DNA customers were providing for medical trials, with results showing that when medicine was targeted towards a specific set of DNA, success rate more than doubled. “If you’re predisposed to certain disease,” he said, “potentially, you can use that data to, maybe not prevent the onset of the disease, but delay its onset. Imagine if you can delay the onset of diabetes for, five years; there’s a tremendous cost saving in that.”

“Data is the new oil,” concluded Asad, and until we effectively and efficiently – and securely – share data, we are losing out on the potential that technology offers.

Asad Khan, Managing Director Health and Public Service | Accenture

Asad Khan is a Managing Director in Accenture’s Health and Public Service practice with more than 23 years of experience in large-scale Digital Health business and IT transformations, delivery and implementations. He specialises in large scale innovative Health IT technology and implementations for governments and commercial clients. Asad focuses on digital health with emphasis on Electronic Health Records (EHR), Electronic Medical Records (EMR), privacy and security, governance, standards, analytics, mobile health, artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Before moving to Singapore, Asad worked with US Federal and State Governments, Healthcare Providers, and technology companies to design strategies, build capabilities, and operate models to support their objectives of better patient outcomes, increase operational efficiencies and to improve healthcare access. Currently, he leads the healthcare delivery for Accenture in ASEAN. In addition, he oversees Accenture’s technology consulting practice, which focuses of using leading technologies like Robotics, AI, and Blockchain, etc. to help develop innovative health solutions. Asad is member of HL7 and is actively involved in development of interoperability standards. He advices various governments and health authorities across the world in all aspects of healthcare and presented at multiple international healthcare conferences. Asad received a Master of Science in Computer Science and Engineering from Texas A & M University, USA. Asad currently lives in Singapore with his wife and their two young children, and supplements his participation in their school activities with volunteer work. He enjoys travel, squash, music and spending time with family and friends.

Read ITIJ's review of ITIC APAC 2022

More ITIC APAC review stories here
Publishing Details

ITIC

15 Jun 2022

Share

Mandy Langfield

Mandy Langfield is Managing Editor for Voyageur Group, with editorial control of ITIJ and its quarterly reviews, as well as AirMed&Rescue. She has written extensively on the topic of international travel and health insurance, as well as medical assistance provision and air medical transportation.

Mandy is also on the committee for the International Travel & Health Insurance Conferences (ITIC).

ITIJ

Footer menu

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms

Social

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
International Travel & Health Insurance Conferences

© Voyageur Publishing & Events 2023