Lessons from a Pandemic: How Active Intelligence can Improve Crisis Management and Resource Allocation in Healthcare

If we want to understand why the global healthcare ecosystem needs an immediate data-led overhaul, we need to look no further than how countries across the world are experiencing second and third waves of the pandemic. In India for example, after a brief lull between December and January, which saw its government announce that the pandemic was 'beaten', COVID-19 has hit back with a vengeance. The number of new daily cases has been on the rise since mid-February, with 2.5 croredetections as of May 20.

As a result, the country's already overburdened healthcare infrastructure has been stretched beyond its breaking point. Hospitals are running out of oxygen, injections, vaccines, and other critical supplies needed to treat patients. Patients are unable to find beds. Critical supplies are being sold on the black market, even as doctors and patients are forced to resort to social media and personal contacts to fulfil urgent demand.

Even more tragic is the fact that all of this could have been avoided or, at least, minimised through Active Intelligence.

India's coronavirus conundrum: How data could have helped in combatting the pandemic

It is no secret that the healthcare sector generates massive quantities of data every day. This data can, and frequently does, fluctuate; the number of beds occupied on any given day in each city does not remain the same, nor does the demand for different prescription medications. Without an intelligent mechanism that can analyse such varied and dynamic data to automatically initiate contextual actions, healthcare service providers risk missing out on time-relevant information that can save lives.

The current healthcare crisis in India exemplifies the impact of such a miss. Even as daily cases started to rise again, the economy continued to be gradually unlocked. Employees returned to offices. Political rallies and large religious/social gatherings were held with minimal COVID-compliant safety behaviour. There was little to no planning for capacity building, potential supply disruptions, or demand overdrives in case the situation changed.

While the actual COVID public response also depends on local government policy frameworks and efficient bureaucracy, Active Intelligence could have informed the sector of the imminent crisis and limit the number of lives lost.

For instance, once the second wave was confirmed, stakeholders could have tracked incidence data to project, in real-time, the spread vector of the virus, as well as the current and future demand for COVID-essential supplies across locations. This, in turn, could have helped them strengthen, prioritise, and build supply chains and critical infrastructure ahead of time. BlueDot, the AI-based outbreak risk software that flagged a cluster of unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan at the onset of the pandemic, had shown the way by successfully predicting the first cities to be hit by the viral contagion.

Active Intelligence can also help central/state governments, private organisations, and NGOs working to provide COVID relief to gain better control of the logistics of managing the pandemic. For example, a smart, real-time data dashboard for essential supplies can identify the dynamic demand for different items across regions to automatically prioritise sourcing and distribution to fulfil urgent requirements.

This insight-driven automation will allow healthcare leaders to make more strategic interventions instead of managing the cumbersome task of managing the supply chain. Such a deployment can also reduce leakage, hoarding, and black marketing by enabling them with a more holistic, transparent, and real-time view of the demand, supply, and movement of essential goods.

Beyond the pandemic: Benefits that Active Intelligence can unlock for the global healthcare sector

Thinking beyond the pandemic even, Active Intelligence can further improve utilisation of critical resources by initiating automated, trigger-based alerts and actions based on dynamic data insights. It can also help to ensure more consistent patient care across cities.

In Australia for example, a medical trial conducted for 4,500 patients brought together data across 4 hospitals and was able to improve overall patient care while reducing opioid prescription by 24% – all by providing data-driven feedback about prescription use to clinicians. This was achieved without any increase in pain levels or drop in customer satisfaction and has been lauded as a major step in combatting global opioid addiction.

Similarly, the use of dynamic insights based on data such as patient treatment plans and scheduled surgeries can help in streamlining, automating, and prioritising the demand for critical items and infrastructure. This is critically important as it is easy to forget that hospitals have other urgent surgeries and medical crises to tend to beyond COVID-19. Real-time insights gathered through smart devices and wearables can even help in identifying early indicators for patients with chronic issues such as diabetes and cardiovascular ailments, allowing caregivers to initiate proactive intervention and remediation before a serious incident.

As Qlik's partner, Direct Relief's rapid response to the second wave in India has highlighted, healthcare professionals on the ground demand better and more actionable real-time data – and the results validate the role that Active Intelligence-based alerts and notifications can play in improving healthcare delivery. The current crisis has been a proving ground for the concept, underscoring the urgent need to redesign the wheel in the global healthcare space. By leveraging Active Intelligence, healthcare players can stay ahead of the curve by improving their preparedness to operate in a future that is uncertain, yet full of potential.

Author

Varun Babbar, Managing Director, Qlik India