• We demand an early warning system for hereafter crises.
  • Digital access must exist seen as a utility, like electricity and plumbing.
  • Creative partnerships and the digital economy tin create a better world for all.

The tele-health team at Jefferson Wellness has been calling themselves the "Night's Watch", a reference to the battle-hardened edge patrol in the TV serial Game of Thrones. And it'south true, where it's bachelor tele-health has allowed thousands to be screened and supported at home, giving our hospitals fourth dimension to set up for the onslaught of intensive intendance treatment for those who need information technology. Indeed, most people with COVID-19 will be cared for at dwelling house, and we are learning how to help them there.

But the lesson of tele-health – of digital medicine – applies to many more than industries than healthcare commitment. It is part of how every industry will be transformed as the pandemic hastens the digitalization of work in every sector.

In medical terms, the global economy has been dislocated. Much of how we pb it into the future volition be digital, and because of our piece of work on the frontlines in healthcare, I believe nosotros have lessons for all industries.

My dialogue with members of the World Economic Forum these past weeks encourage me to believe the Forum will be part of that leadership. We must commit together to build equitable and sustainable models for an optimistic future every bit we emerge from the crisis of COVID-19. Allow me to selection a few of those lessons:

1. Speed and trust. Too conspicuously, we learned how much we demand an early alarm system for future crises, whether from climate change or pandemics. Time to come global crises may not just come from disease – which is why a warning system like the Earth Health Organization's proposed Epi-Brain offers a comprehensive model. Having a organisation we can trust is critical: only through trust will citizens act as they did to self-isolate. In truth, we acted together by staying apart.

two. Broadband access to the internet. Every bit tele-health illustrated, digital access is now like oxygen. For years, our social workers have been advising cancer patients on how to access their ain wellness information and treatment plans online. Now all our patients who have financial difficulties are in demand of that advice. Students throughout the world could not access online learning tools without broadband. The Forum's work on emergency spectrum access has been disquisitional. Digital access must be seen every bit a utility, like electricity and plumbing.

Global digital population as of January 2020 (billions)

3. Medical surge chapters. COVID-xix showed us, as did the refugee crunch, that the earth lacks the power to get together a powerful intensive care capacity. This is now a clear challenge for world leaders.

iv. Wellness assurance. COVID-19 proved that the "Cyberspace of You lot" can support a new era of health assurance. I telephone call information technology "healthcare with no address", where sophisticated medicine can be delivered to people at home. People want to live happy and productive lives without healthcare getting in the style. Nosotros now know we can do that. In many countries, notably India, this is the future. As futurist Vinod Khosla observed, it would take an infinite corporeality of money to provide traditional hospital support to every person on the earth. Instead, it must be done with digital health.

five. Ethics and equity. The promise of digital medicine is the promise of the Quaternary Industrial Revolution, where the tools of bogus intelligence transform all professions. At the same time, healthcare is the ultimate argument for the difficult lesson: that the digital futurity cannot simply make the wealthy healthier. Digital medicine gives united states of america an unparalleled opportunity to address the social determinants of wellness and provide access to everyone in their own neighbourhoods.

What is the Earth Economic Forum doing about the coronavirus outbreak?

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic requires global cooperation among governments, international organizations and the business community, which is at the eye of the Earth Economic Forum'southward mission as the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.

Since its launch on 11 March, the Forum'southward COVID Activity Platform has brought together 1,667 stakeholders from 1,106 businesses and organizations to mitigate the hazard and impact of the unprecedented global health emergency that is COVID-19.

The platform is created with the support of the World Health Organisation and is open up to all businesses and manufacture groups, likewise as other stakeholders, aiming to integrate and inform joint activity.

As an arrangement, the Forum has a rails record of supporting efforts to contain epidemics. In 2017, at our Annual Coming together, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched – bringing together experts from government, business, wellness, academia and civil guild to accelerate the development of vaccines. CEPI is currently supporting the race to develop a vaccine confronting this strand of the coronavirus.

The World Economic Forum has stood for 50 years behind the idea that industry has stakeholders besides as shareholders. I am securely encouraged that this core ideal stands business firm as we develop digital medicine and create a world of health assurance for all. This pandemic will be controlled eventually past the technology of medications and vaccines, just the lessons we have learned should assist us build a powerful futurity across industries. Never in its history has the Globe Economic Forum had a greater opportunity to lead a discussion on how new technologies, creative partnerships and the digital economy tin can, in the spirit of stakeholder commercialism, create a better earth for all.