This article first appeared in Digital Edge, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on June 24, 2024 - June 30, 2024

The shortage of doctors and essential resources has been a persistent, unsolved problem in hospitals and the healthcare sector in general. The Ministry of Health’s 2023 Health Facts reveals that there is one doctor to 412 Malaysians, or 2.4 doctors for 1,000 people. To benchmark against Asean, Singapore had 2.7, Brunei had 1.6, Thailand 0.9 and Indonesia had 0.6 doctors for every 1,000 people in 2022.

Even with Singapore and Malaysia boasting a higher doctor-to-population ratio among these Asean countries, persistent challenges such as long waiting times for doctor consultations and resource insufficiency continue to plague the healthcare ecosystem. For example, most of us might have experienced this before — arriving at the hospital, only to find a limited number of doctors available, causing the hospital to be overcrowded and long waiting times for doctor consultation.

The shortage of doctors and resources in Asean hospitals poses multifaceted challenges, hindering the delivery of efficient and timely healthcare services. A survey of Malaysia’s government health service, conducted by medical news website CodeBlue in February 2023, revealed that six in 10 permanent staff members were contemplating resignation, reflecting the deep-seated frustrations within the healthcare workforce.

However, before assigning blame, we must acknowledge the complex healthcare system’s role in overburdening medical practitioners. Many hospitals have started their digitalisation journey but most are not fully digitalised, requiring many manual processes. At least two hours a day, which is 25% of the medical practitioners’ work day, are spent looking for the documents, information or people they need to do their jobs.

It doesn’t stop there. Sudden changes and unexpected situations like the absence of any medical staff mess up the scheduling and there is always no immediate solution, which causes the burnout of workers. Delay in doctor-patient consultation has also led to inefficiency, resulting in long patient visitation times due to the limited number of doctors or other medical practitioners.

But innovative solutions are at hand. Some leading healthcare sectors across the region are leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI technologies to revolutionise efficiency.

Medical information retrieval and document searches

Generative AI transforms medical information retrieval and document searches in hospitals, utilising advanced algorithms to quickly find and analyse pertinent data, thereby streamlining decision-making and enhancing patient care outcomes.

By implementing generative AI, hospitals can save over 80% of search time, empowering healthcare professionals to prioritise patient care and driving overall enhancements in healthcare delivery.

Scheduling and rostering management

AI-driven scheduling simplifies staff and resource management by rapidly generating optimal staffing timetables, considering available resources and user-defined constraints, while also alerting users to potential limitations.

With scheduling time reduced by over 90%, it ensures optimal staffing levels, enables swift responses to urgent situations, and enhances both patient care and satisfaction.

Doctor-patient consultation process

Generative AI revolutionises medical consultations by cutting visitation times by over 30% and allowing doctors to see 20% more patients daily, while reducing costs by 70%.

This efficiency boost is achieved by automating the transcription of conversations between doctors and patients into consultation and diagnosis summaries, reducing manual record-keeping and speeding up interactions with medical teams for quicker medication and follow-up action.

As such, doctors spend less time on administrative tasks and more on patient care, significantly enhancing both service delivery and patient outcomes.

The shortage of doctors and resources can be significantly addressed by simplifying and optimising the healthcare ecosystem with the solutions mentioned above. These improvements not only optimise patient care and save more lives, but the time saved from the increased efficiency also means saving millions of dollars per year for the healthcare provider.

While adopting AI and generative AI technologies will enhance healthcare efficiency, it is crucial to prioritise patient privacy, security and seamless integration.

Protecting healthcare data ensures compliance and builds patient trust. Robust security measures are important to prevent breaches and maintain data confidentiality. Seamless integration with existing systems minimises disruptions and optimises workflow efficiency.

These considerations are required for successful implementation and effective utilisation of advanced technologies in healthcare settings.

In addressing the ongoing challenges, it is crucial for all healthcare sectors to adopt innovative approaches and prioritise efficiency. By doing so, we can collectively improve healthcare delivery across Asean, ensuring more patients receive timely care and lives are saved.

Kew Yoke Ling is executive director of KewMann, an Asia-based artificial intelligence and big data analytics company

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