Leveraging the Use of Technology for NCD
adminNon-communicable diseases (NCDs) pose a significant global health challenge, contributing to 17 million premature deaths annually – one every 2 seconds mostly in low and middle-income countries. Addressing NCDs is imperative to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically Goal 3.4.1 of reducing premature mortality due to NCD by 33% by 2030, which aims to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all. According to WHO, only 14 countries are projected to achieve the target. The solutions are known but there is a lack of willpower, and human and financial resources to accomplish the task. Leveraging technology has the potential to revolutionize the way we address NCDs and accelerate progress toward achieving the SDG target. By harnessing the power of digital health tools, data analytics, and collaborative partnerships, we can empower individuals, strengthen health systems, and ultimately reduce the burden of NCDs globally. It presents a promising avenue for enhancing prevention, diagnosis, and treatment strategies to meet the NCD SDG target.
The burden of NCDs continues to escalate, driven by factors such as aging populations, urbanization, and lifestyle changes. Despite progress in raising awareness and implementing interventions, gaps remain in reaching the NCD SDG target. It is projected that due to NCD and changing demography, there will be a shortage of 40 million health workers on top of the existing gap of 18 million health workers. As such and amongst many reasons, technology offers innovative solutions to overcome these challenges by enhancing knowledge, improving access to healthcare, empowering individuals in self-management, and enhancing surveillance and monitoring systems.
There is a need explore the role of technology in strengthening NCD prevention and management efforts, identify strategies for leveraging data analytics and artificial intelligence to enhance NCD research, epidemiological surveillance, and policy formulation; and promote partnerships and collaboration among key stakeholders of governments, healthcare providers, technology developers, and civil society organizations, to maximize the impact of technological innovations in addressing NCDs.
The Potential Strategies are :
1. Mobile Health (mHealth) Applications: Develop and deploy smartphone applications for health promotion, disease prevention, and management of NCD risk factors such as tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and alcohol consumption.
2. Wearable Devices: Utilize wearable sensors and devices for real-time monitoring of vital signs, physical activity, and metabolic parameters to facilitate early detection and personalized interventions for NCDs.
3. Strengthening lower-level NCD care: Establish mechanisms for actionable NCD management at community level and lower-level facilities by upskilling community health workers and/or leveraging telemedicine platforms to provide remote consultations, localized follow-up care, and counseling services for individuals with NCDs, especially those in underserved or remote areas.
4. Health Information Systems: Strengthen health information systems to enable seamless data exchange across levels of care, interoperability, and analysis for NCD surveillance, disease management, research, and policy-making.
5. Public-Private Partnerships: Foster collaborations between governments, technology companies, academia, and non-profit organizations to co-create and scale innovative solutions for NCD prevention and control
