Question

COVID-19 pandemic has changed the day-to-day experience of working in health care including the boom in telehealth (telemedicine), more teleworkers (stepping back), first responders (stepping up - front line)....postponement of elective procedures/surgeries and right to those services (autonomy), social distancing, who is receiving testing/treatment for COVID-19 (justice). Privacy/security of the electronic health record (EHR), data breaches, and improperly accessing EHRs caused by coronvirus curiosity -(Integrity). What are some health technologies and ethical challenges in advent of COVID-19? Discuss 2

Answer 1

In recent years, the world has witnessed the rise of SARS, Zika virus, Ebola and now COVID-19. Epidemics are a rising threat.Cities across the world have made infrastructure innovation a priority to safeguard their physical systems so they can stay robust and antifragile during natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami and hurricanes. But pandemics have shown that these methods aren’t enough when it comes to ensuring connectivity and accessing our society during biological disasters

Governments are now relying on ubiquitous instruments (sensors) and powerful algorithms instead of flesh-and-blood spooks. In the war against COVID-19, several governments have implemented these new surveillance tools.

This Covid 19 pandemic has triggered an unprecedented demand for digital health technology solutions and has revealed successful solutions such as for population screening, tracking the infection, prioritizing the use and allocation of resources, and designing targeted responses.

In this(covid-19) pandemic, we are witnessing three major occurrences across the globe:

1.Wider acceptance of online services;

2.A humongous requirement for internet services for conventional industries;

3.Boosted connectivity among diverse types of industries.

These three data streams provide important, real-time data about travel patterns that spread disease and longitudinal alterations in populations at risk, which until recently have been very difficult to quantify on schedules related to a fast-moving pandemic. With an exponential rise in mobility and growing global connectivity, this information will be critical to planning surveillance and containment strategies.

Some researchers and private entities along with their respective state governments are developing a digital platform, HealthMap, which visually represents the disease outbreaks according to location, time and the type of contagious virus, bacterial disease that is being carried while entering into the city.

Digital infrastructure plays a pivotal role in predicting and modelling outbreaks. Take AI-supported services for a lung CT scan: the AI is premeditated to quickly detect lesions of likely coronavirus pneumonia; to measure its volume, shape and density; and to compare changes of multiple lung lesions from the image. This provides a quantitative report to assist doctors in making fast judgements and thus helps expedite the health evaluation of patients.

Governments across the globe are gradually developing the digital infrastructure and engineering capabilities to face the pandemic and alleviate the spread of COVID-19 through community-driven contact-tracing technologies. These enable citizens to react assertively and promptly to pandemic diseases with a set of digital tools to help spread timely and precise information to its citizens.

Many governments are encouraging private companies to develop innovative tools that make use of hundreds of millions of facial recognition cameras and people reporting their body temperature and medical condition. Through this authorities can quickly identify suspected coronavirus transporters and identify anyone with whom they have come into contact. An array of mobile apps warns citizens about their proximity to infected patients.

The virus has provided a new start for digital infrastructure development. Using the cloud, big data and AI applications creates room for industries to develop and build new business models that help citizens understand the severity of pandemic disease and ensure preventive measures.