Preparing for the next pandemic  

January is always the busiest time of the year for the Healthcare World team as Arab Health takes place. I’m struck by how different the situation is from last year when we were returning to Dubai for the first time post COVID. So how much has really changed in our sector? How many lessons did we learn from two years of coronavirus and will we be better equipped for the next global healthcare crisis?

Of course, the first thing to point out is that COVID is by no means over. Recent events in China prove that we could expect a flare up at any moment. Equally we are still coming to terms with the long term effects of the pandemic and trying to work out what exactly Long Covid is and how to deal with it.

The world, by and large, is certainly acting as if COVID is no longer with us and this is my point. There are clearly some huge positive developments that came out of the COVID crisis. We now know that we can develop an effective vaccine in an amazingly short space of time.

The rise of data and digitally-led healthcare provision also received a huge shot in the arm as a result of COVID-19. We are now in an age where every element of healthcare delivery is digitally driven and the benefits of population health and data modelling for healthcare are known, desired and acted upon in every health system, driving more efficient delivery of care.

But this revolution in healthcare was going to happen anyway. The arrival of a global pandemic has not been the cause of a digital healthcare revolution, but it has hastened its arrival. That’s just as well, because one of the huge negatives of COVID has been its effect on the global healthcare workforce.

An already impending crisis has been worsened massively by the pandemic causing a stressed, demotivated, underpaid and under-appreciated healthcare workforce. People have left the healthcare profession in droves and we cannot educate replacements quickly enough.

The wealthy economies of the globe must learn the lesson quickly that the time is rapidly approaching where health systems cannot rely on cheaper labour from less wealthy economies. Growing your own workforce will have to become a cornerstone of the development of any health economy. And that workforce will inevitably become far more expensive.

It’s notable to see that Dubai, traditionally a health sector with an almost 100 per cent rate of immigrant healthcare workers, is developing a strategy to create an indigenous workforce with the establishment of the Dubai Health Science Corporation. Their remit is not just as the Emirate’s dominant public healthcare provider, but also Sheik Rashid University and the promotion and training of healthcare workers for Dubai, in Dubai. Other systems should take note.

Crisis mitigation could come in many forms. Digital healthcare and the use of data will help us to focus stretched resources in their greatest areas of need. The rise of virtual reality and the Metaverse may provide opportunities for surgeons in one country to use technology to perform operations in another using a combination of robotics and VR.

And what about public health messaging? If our health systems need to learn one lesson for the next pandemic, it’s that we need clear, simple and decisive guidelines on what is and isn’t acceptable in the face of a threat from a deadly disease. This doesn’t mean choices about whether or not to be vaccinated. It means making sure that choice is properly informed and that the way in which a society behaves during the darkest days of a pandemic is better policed, clearer and easily understood.

The worst days of COVID-19 are behind us but, in our rush to return to normality, the concern is that those of us involved in policy making, decision making, funding and delivering healthcare have all too quickly forgotten the lessons of the pandemic.

There will be another pandemic down the track so will we deal with this one any better? And will we learn our lessons next time?