This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 12, 2024 - August 18, 2024

Across the world, the average life expectancy is now 73 years old — more than double what it was 200 years ago. The good news is this: Malaysians have a slight edge as our average mortality is now 75 years, up from 72 some 20 years ago.

What has led to this positive trajectory, and what will it take to keep edging it upwards? A combination of several factors, from improved education, better sanitation and connected community living to quality of food and more. Popular documentary The Blue Zone offers insights into how pockets of populations are thriving, while other “life hacks” are fast emerging and gaining popularity — leading many to believe that technology and innovation will reshape how we can extend and live our best life, complemented by digital tools that will rapidly transform how we deliver care and health services.

Disease prevention is perhaps one of the largest steps forward in the aspect of longevity. Tools such as the smartwatch have given us a way to seamlessly and regularly integrate biometric monitoring into daily life. A 2021 study by PwC found that 45% of Malaysians in the Klang Valley actively monitor their health using wearable devices and health apps. Such solutions also positively create a sense of peer pressure and gamification, which serve as motivation for groups of people to monitor step counts and workouts on the leaderboard. Over a period of time, individuals and communities enhance their ability to better identify and correct unhealthy habits while adopting healthier behaviours.

This corresponds with a survey among physicians by the Ministry of Health that revealed that 88% of doctors actually want their patients to track their health. While previously, readings such as blood pressure, glucose and the electrocardiogram needed specialised equipment and machines, these can be now measured by just a smartphone — enabling earlier diagnosis and monitoring.

Beyond personal gain, there are also positive national implications. With greater access to timely and traceable biometric data, and from more touchpoints across communities and society, warning signs of medical conditions can be identified early — saving significant amounts of money on treatment in the long run.

By lowering the cost of care through prevention and early diagnosis, the digital transition can help combat medical inflation (the rate at which the cost of medical services and products increases over time) which stood at 14.2% in 2023, compared with the national Consumer Price Index inflation of 1.8%.

In all, digital health solutions would enable the country to better understand the national state of our health, and therefore design and prescribe better measures to keep more of us healthy, more affordably.

Knowing how one should act is one thing, but doing so is another. In a study published in 2017 in the Patient Preference and Adherence journal, researchers found that 50% of patients with cardiac disease do not actually adhere to medication prescriptions. Here, generative artificial intelligence has the potential to leverage behavioural science to automate and personalise communication to individuals, potentially encouraging more to adopt early screening or adhere to prescriptions more closely.

It is no surprise that one of the fastest growing areas over the last few years has been telehealth and telemedicine. Beyond offering convenience in administering care, especially to rural, remote, difficult areas or disaster zones, these technologies expand access to quality health, thereby helping those in underserved areas to live longer and correspondingly raise the national average life expectancy.

There is also a lot of exciting work in the area of curative health, from areas such as genetic sequencing, personalised nutrition programmes and tailored prescriptions to targeted medicine. One pioneer in this space is Altos Labs, formed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and entrepreneur Yuri Milner, to develop life-extending therapies through cell rejuvenation.

Better air, water and soil are elements that contribute to our longevity and quality of life. As such, the design of our cities, transport systems and waste networks must accommodate the changing needs and lifestyle of a society. In this, many start-ups have begun developing better and novel living spaces and researching better support structures, including financial solutions for different pockets of society, to up the ante on living well and lasting strong.

As with these, attention to healthtech is just as necessary, although it can be challenging. The healthcare segment is notoriously slow to digitalise, for good reason, as solutions must take a path laden with regulatory protocols and trials, proven beyond doubt to be safe, especially when the stakes are so high.

But given that the promise of technology for longer and better lives is so enticing, the work, attention and investment must start now — with the premise to advance the whole of society — so humanity experiences the fullness of our potential, in health and in living.

Brendan Beh has a master’s degree in biophysics from the University of Cambridge and is founder of healthtech start-up Byte In. Dr Michael Gan is a medical doctor turned venture capitalist with Kairous Capital.

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