PETALING JAYA: IHH Healthcare Bhd is allocating an estimated capital expenditure (capex) of US$100mil (RM419mil) to develop its digital healthcare capabilities in the next three years.

       “We are planning to invest heavily in digital healthcare. This is a marker or an estimate and the journey won’t stop here,” said group managing director and chief executive officer Dr Kelvin Loh at a webinar titled “Emerging healthcare trends in a post-Covid world” yesterday.

       The investments would go into three main areas, he said.

       “We will invest into the digital foundation as we would like to digitise our processes to improve the speed of these processes. It would also help to collect data to ensure it is fully private and confidential. This would enable us to execute the next layers better.

       “The second layer is to use digital technology to better interface with our patients. They will always remain high-touch and high-tech. This is to make things more convenient for patients,” he elaborated.

       IHH Acibadem hospital

       He said the third layer it would invest into are deep capabilities which would improve healthcare in the areas of artificial intelligence and data-driven decision making or data analytics.

       “This would allow us to improve or enhance capabilities in terms of diagnostics and care. At the same time, it would bring up our ability to deliver our processes down to the individual patient as every patient is different,” Loh said.

       “Investments would definitely be US$100mil (RM419mil) over the next three years and we are not stopping there,” he pointed out.

       He also acknowledged that the advent of digital healthcare today is changing the face of healthcare delivery, which would translate to less capital intensive operations compared to how things were done before.

       “Technologies have the ability to enhance care, to leapfrog care to take service delivery to another level of convenience and ability. This would not be there without the technologies and it would enable us to do so in a less capital intensive way,” Loh said.

       “The traditional healthcare model is relatively capital intensive as a person would always need to go into a hospital to get something done and to see the specialist. Therefore, it would help to reduce this capital intensiveness and improve care for the patient,” he added.

       Loh said digitisation would be a long-term journey for the group.

       “It would be a big feature in the next couple of years. We will start to be able to deliver care beyond the hospital walls. We have to ensure there is this seamless transition,” he noted.

       “It won’t be all care being transferred out but some of this care can be (such as) repeated consultations, early triage, prescription refills and in the areas of information or remote monitoring. These are things which can be done safely outside the hospital walls,” Loh added.