2021 Asia-Pacific Healthcare Trends: Growing Digitization, Universal Health Coverage, and More (White Paper)

In 2021, a collision of powerful elements will continue shaping healthcare trends across Asia-Pacific (APAC). Ongoing factors include aging populations, increasing demand for healthcare access, the regional disparity in healthcare infrastructure and services, limited resources (both financial and human)—all recently coupled with COVID-19.

COVID-19’s economic impact in APAC has caused a distinct bifurcation of trends between public and private health systems. Private health systems are scrambling to replace revenues lost to local and international travel restrictions. In contrast, public health systems increasingly focus on value-driven outcomes as they respond to the pandemic’s extraordinary demands. Meanwhile, governments are diverting funds from healthcare to economic stimuli.

亚太地区既有发达国家，也有发展中国家，其中一些国家，如印度，在其境内表现出巨大的发展多样性。这种多样性造成了城市保健(往往是由于慢性病增加)与农村社区扩大获得基本保健(如妇幼保健和紧急服务)的机会之间的紧张关系。甚至在人口密集的严重贫困地区和相应缺乏交通和援助的地区也经常存在类似的差距。

Digital Health Leads 2021 Asia-Pacific Healthcare Trends

The focus on using healthcare IT and digital health innovation has grown substantially in the past 10 years in APAC countries. Several notable trends will drive the ongoing digital health evolution in the region in 2021:

The Continued Shift to Telemedicine and Virtual Care

With widespread lockdowns and patients increasingly hesitant to go to general practitioners (GPs) or any clinician for fear of COVID-19 infection, many patients have turned to telemedicine as an alternative to in-person healthcare visits. For example,Ping An Good Doctor, a Chinese healthcare services platform, andMyDoc, a telemedicine platform headquartered in Singapore, havemore than doubledtheir active users since the onset of COVID-19.

An Increased Focus on Machine Learning

Healthcare leaders in hospitals across APAC continue to prioritize augmented intelligence (AI) for decision support and machine learning. Market forecasters project record growth for the APAC healthcare AI market, registering a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of41.05 percentfrom 2020 through 2028.

According to market research consultantsInkwood Research, the prominent drivers of healthcare AI market growth include investments from private and government organizations and the increasing establishment of startups. But just as machine learning has benefits, it also has limitations. For example, these capabilities lose their impact when organizations implement them without realistic expectations or thorough integration with existing clinical processes, making informed machine learning strategy an imperative in the region.

Accelerated EMR Adoption

Except for India and the Philippines, almost every APAC country uses anEMR, at least partially. Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and Japan have had EMR systems for years, but market development across the APAC has been uneven. Countries stand at varying levels of EMR adoption and sophistication.

Developed nations, such as Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Japan are looking into health data and analytics for population health management. Developing markets, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines, still focus on improving their data capture systems. To address the needs of the APAC market, EMR vendors will need to provide differentEMR software packages发达国家和发展中国家。发达市场将需要更复杂的软件包，发展中市场将需要高度可扩展和负担得起的EMR软件包。

More Focus on Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity attacksat APAC hospitals continue to be a growing concern. Cyberattacks in the region have increased significantly, notably between February and March 2020. The surge in people browsing information on COVID-19 and other topics during lockdown has boosted the number of phishing attacks. In addition, working from home has decreased employer investment in office cybersecurity safeguards. Even before the acute phases of the pandemic, APAC cybersecurity investment was on the rise, with market forecasters predicting a cybersecurity market CAGR of almost22 percentbetween 2020 and 2025.

Growing Interest in Data- and Analytics-Driven Financial Recovery

Countries across the APAC region have recorded fast medical tourism expansion, with a predicted growth rate of15.5 percentbetween 2017 and 2023. Treatment in Asia is up to 90 percent less expensive than private U.S. healthcare. For example, according to theMalaysia Healthcare Travel Council,a coronary artery bypass graft that would cost$92,000in the United States costs less than $10,000 in India.

However, COVID-19 travel restrictions have slowed medical tourism in APAC countries, resulting in income loss among private hospitals. According to theBMJ,forecasters expect the medical tourism market, worth up toUS$87.5 billionannually, to shrink through 2021 as patients avoid unnecessary travel.

At some of the top hospitals in Thailand, where in some cases, half the patients come from medical tourism, experts saw roughly a28 percent drop在2020年底的收入。患者从澳大利亚、印度尼西亚和中东飞往泰国接受治疗。大流行突然停止了所有前往该地区的旅行。

In response to the loss of medical tourism revenue and uncertainty about its return, impacted organizations have a growing interest in leveraging their data and using analytics to recover lost revenue. This shift towards a data-driven approach to improving revenue and cutting costs is a new trend as private hospitals focus on real-world data and data monetization to generate new revenue streams.

Improving Hospital Systems and Operations: Universal Health Coverage and Government-Driven Healthcare

Along with digital transformation, APAC countries increasingly focus on improving hospital systems and operations with universal health coverage (UHC) and government-driven healthcare. According toWorld Healthcare Organization, COVID-19 has exposedgaps and deficienciesin health systems across the APAC region and underscored the interdependence between health security and economic stability, highlighting the importance of UHC. Countries that have made good progress towards UHC have better managed the health impacts of COVID-19 and, therefore, the pandemic’s economic impacts.

With UHC comes a shift in healthcare financing, with capitation models and value-based care models becoming more common in the region, along with a movement away from fee for service. Specifically, theAustralianmarket has the transition from volume to value on its health agenda. And in Singapore, theMinistry of Healthis exploringvalue-based initiatives, such as value-based financing through bundled payments and hospital-to-home programs.

Strengthening Payer-Provider Relationships

随着亚太地区面向全民医疗保健覆盖，医疗保健领导人必须把支付方与提供者的关系放在首位。传统上，该地区的支付者和提供者没有合作，通常只专注于报销。

Payers are slowly exerting more pressure on providers to increase transparency on claims, clinical processes in the hospital, and over-time quality outcomes. While the region has panel GPs ( a group, of GPs and allied health service providers who have agreed to undertake priority activities), leaders are starting to discuss the concept of panel hospitals. This is leading to platforms that allow the secure exchange of data between hospitals and providers and the use of data and analytics to identify areas, such appropriateness of care, by clinicians and automated bill adjudication.

A recent example of the focus on aligning payors and providers is theHealthcare-Insurance Industry Pilot(HIIP), a healthcare and insurance cross-sector alliance between Singapore’s healthcare and insurance segments. This alliance (whichGeneral Insurance Association Singaporerepresents),Life Insurance Association, Singapore, and theIntegrated Health Information Systemshave recently announced aCall-for-Proposal(CFP). The CFP recommends an end-to-end health insurance claims platform to improve patient experience and enhance operational efficiency.

The above initiative aligns with Singapore’s move towards a digital, innovation-driven economy that would bring more comprehensive benefits to Singaporeans. The pilot plans to bring about the following benefits:

• Convenient access to patients’ insurance policy details.
• Faster claims processing.
• Seamless authorization of data release.
• Timelier exchange of data.

总的来说，这些新举措对保险公司和医疗服务提供者来说可能是一个双赢的提议，并为获得更负担得起的高质量医疗服务铺平了道路。

Asia-Pacific Healthcare Trends in 2021 Show Growth, Recovery, Transformation

As APAC braces for COVID-19 recovery and resuming the healthcare improvement journey, the region shows strong trends towards better healthcare access overall. Countries are focusing not on merely returning care delivery and quality to pre-pandemic levels but resuming their commitment to healthcare transformation. Increasing investment in digital health, a sustained eye on value, and a growing focus on payer-provider relationships stand to enhance healthcare delivery for communities across the APAC region and contribute to better health across the globe.

Additional Reading

Would you like to learn more about this topic? Here are some articles we suggest:

1. 2021 Healthcare Trends: What Leaders Need to Know from COVID-19 to New Administration Policies
2. The 2021 Healthcare Financial Forecast: What to Expect, How to Prepare
3. Data Bridges the Knowledge Gaps in the Fight Against COVID-19
4. How a U.S. COVID-19 Data Registry Fuels Global Research
5. Telehealth: A Top Organizational Performance Solution During COVID-19 and Beyond