COVID-19: watershed moment for digital healthcare?

COVID-19: watershed moment for digital healthcare?

Impact of COVID-19 has compelled the world to adopt digital healthcare technologies.

Challenge remains to address global inequalities as 47% of world not online.

EDISON Alliance part of movement to support multi-stakeholder collaborations that will deliver patient care post-COVID-19.



The year 2020 was a watershed moment in modern history. Faced with a rapidly spreading virus, the global response to COVID-19 was not just a race to find drugs and vaccines that would treat and prevent the disease and stop its spread; countries also rushed to limit the social and economic impact and sustain supply and demand to prevent market shock.

The WHO, in the prescient Global Preparedness Monitoring Board report of 2019, warned of the economic devastation from a global pandemic. The World Bank estimated that a global influenza pandemic akin to the scale and virulence of the Spanish flu in 1918 would cost US$3 trillion, or up to 4.8% of GDP.



One of the key engines driving the global response was the digitization of society and the economy. The UN Digital Economy Report 2019 had highlighted the increasing digitization of the world economy, with digitally deliverable service exports at 50% of global services exports in 2018. The pandemic