Pandora’s Box: The Pandemic in Years To Come
How to change the approach to a new emergency in a customer-centered health program
Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic was a devastating event for humanity that caused millions of deaths around the world, worsened by an absolute unpreparedness of health organizations both at a national and global level and by the lack of a common global vision to tackle at best the problem. Still, appropriately customized technologies can support the innovation of the healthcare system by improving the quality of life of patients, strengthening the prevention, collaboration and reaction phases when facing a health emergency, trying to foresee future scenarios, intervening quickly when needed and offering the means to face a possible danger with greater awareness and ability to react. Means such as Artificial Intelligence cam profoundly change the health system, by rationalizing and creating a more preventive and prepared treatment network. The project described envisages the hypothesis of a pandemic scenario in the upcoming years – 2030,2050,2070 – and hypothesizes the most diverse solutions, considering that even the worst experiences can be taken advantage of to draw valuable lessons.
Keywords: Pandemic Covid-19, Health System, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Digital Health.
Introduction
The world-wide pandemic of COVID-19 has completely changed our way of life, from the social, psychological, and economic angles. It has already caused enormous numbers of victims, and the tally still grows daily. The vaccination campaign, that has now got under way, is the most massive in history. Social life is curtailed and social distancing, as it is called, implies dense patterns of socially negative physical and moral significance.
The world of medicine is under pressure, with doctors, healthcare workers and hospitals under immense pressure, all committed to sharing the load. At first hospitals were close to collapse, unable to deal with the pressure of the waves of demand. There is general agreement, however, that this experience must be put to good use if – or when – the disease repeats or alarming new situations arise in the next few years. This is why we have called this study Pandora’s Box.
This ‘project’ – guessing at the possible future of the health system - involves a group of students of the Customer Experience and Innovation Masters at IE University in Madrid. We tried to foresee the future of the health sector, taking account of the challenges the COVID pandemic has brought the world, and faced with the risk of another global health alarm in the future.
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