The National Pre-Congress of Digital Health Ecosystem was held in Khatam University

According to Khatam University’s Public Relations and Website Department, the event, organized by the Iran Management Association, took place on the afternoon of Wednesday, November 27, at Khatam University in Tehran. It featured the participation of experts, researchers, and enthusiasts in the field of digital health.

“Digital health should be an integral part of health priorities.”

Dr. Majid Ghasemi, the chairman of the policy council of this pre-congress and the chairman of the board of directors of the Iran Management Association in the opening speech of this national event, emphasizing the importance and position of the health sector in the GDP of countries, said: “the share of the health sector in the GDP index of different countries fluctuates between 9.5 and 13 percent and for example, health services in 2023 will be about 10 trillion dollars.”

“A country like ours, which is facing limited resources, if it can manage this area well, it can at least improve its quality, and this is not a small issue”, he added.

By presenting a definition of digital health, the president of Khatam University considered it a field of knowledge and practice that is related to the development and use of digital technologies to improve health and continued: “Digital health should be an integral part of the priorities of the health field and benefit people in an ethical way, safe, secure, reliable, fair, and sustainable.

While enumerating the benefits of digital health technology, Dr. Ghasemi predicted the value of the digital health market at around 172 trillion dollars in 2024.

In continuation of the programs of The National Pre-Congress Digital Health Ecosystem, a panel centered around “Governance in the Health Ecosystem” with the presence of Dr. Seyed Reza Mazhari, General Director of the Statistics and Information department of Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Dr. Sajjad Mokhber, Managing Director of Nasim Salamat-e-Pasargad and Engineer Mahmoud Jarahi, a member of the Strategic Council of Smart Tehran was held.

“In the field of health system, in addition to the lack of investment and low productivity, we are also plagued by the problem of conflict of interests.”

Dr. Sajjad Mokhber, Managing Director of Nasim Salamat-e-Pasargad, who presided over this meeting, in his speech, assessed the health system as the largest sector of the economy with an expenditure of 10% of the total income of the economic system and stated that the share of health in Iran's GDP index is about 6.7%, the largest he considered the problems of the health system in Iran as well as the world to be the lack of investment and low productivity and added: “In addition to these issues, we are also facing the problem of conflict of interests.”

He called the duties of the government to be regulating and control, and the duties of the private sector to be management and implementation. Then, he listed the following reasons as the slower of digital transformation in health care: legal regulations and requirements, lack of system integration, high implementation costs, cultural resistance, complexity of health service delivery, digital literacy, and access.

The CEO of Nasim Salamat-e-Pasargad also considered the delay in the launch of the "Public Policy" university course (2013) as a sign of not taking the issue of specialized legislation seriously in Iran, and further referring to the achievement of an average of 30 % of the goals of the six development programs in the country, various factors involved in the failure of development programs; including structural problems, economic instability and management challenges.

In this panel, Dr. Seyed Reza Mazhari, General Director of the Statistics and Information department of Ministry of Health and Medical Education in a speech on the subject of "Digital Health Perspective in the 7th Five-Year Plan", said: “One of our most important issues in the field of electronic health is the issue of information circulation and data storage in the health system, which this is done from 4 sources: hospitals, outpatient prescribing and filling, PHC information and self-care information”

“In addition to the issue of information circulation and data storage of the health system, we are faced with issues such as competition in the activities of health system business players, financial interactions in the services of the electronic health system, processes and insular systems in the health field, as well as the separation of the governance position and we are faced with of the private sector position”, he added. In the final part of his speech, he addressed the measures taken in the government to solve the aforementioned challenges and listed some of them.

“The main feed of AI is data tags, and this is an area where we currently fall short.”

The next speaker of this panel was Mahmoud Jarahi, a member of the Strategic Council of Intelligent Tehran, who in his speech, referring to the progress of new technologies and the emergence of artificial intelligence in all fields, raised the question of what will happen to humans with artificial intelligence? “AI is not a new word and what it does is that it increases human power; Not to replace him”, he stated in response.

He also said: “We can realize the prospects facing the country when we can provide high-quality and low-cost services to the public for goods and services such as education, cars, internet, healthy nutrition, housing, financial facilities, treatment, telecommunications, and so on.”

Jarrahi called industrialization the prerequisite for applying artificial intelligence in the health and treatment industry and considered the effectiveness of artificial intelligence to be dependent on creating a transformation in this field and emphasized: “The main feed of artificial intelligence is data tag(categorized data); What we are weak in in our country is that there is a lot of information in all areas, but it is not categorized as necessary.”

“The desirability of health industry services has three indicators: low cost, high quality and scalability.”

In another part of the pre-congress programs of the Digital Health Ecosystem, Dr. Seyed Mehdi Hosseini, the senior manager of smart health business projects of FANAP Infrastructure Company gave a speech about "digital health roadmap and challenges with the smart health operator's approach" and said: “The favorable state of health industry services with three indicators of low cost, high quality and scalability, is clear and It is measured.”

Referring to the foundations of the theory known as the "Baumol effect" which oversees the discussion of the effective factors in reducing productivity in various economic sectors, he said: “Almost since 2010, Baumol's hypothesis, which said that the inflation of the health sector in the whole world is twice that of other sectors of the economy, it changed with the use and efficiency of emerging and innovative technologies.”

Hosseini said: “The health industry is suffering from a cost and inefficiency crisis. We have to increase productivity by making smart in the field of health. This work will be possible with a paradigm shift and a general change of the mental model. Today, businesses must either create their ecosystem and be its leader, or in an ecosystem, position themselves in the value chain and become one of its blocks.”

This senior manager considered that the realization of this goal requires the creation and establishment of a value chain, the recognition of stakeholders, cooperative competition and the creation of value and usefulness for stakeholders and emphasized: “All these events must be created on the ecosystem’s platform and we must have a platform and system approach to the issue.”

The next speaker of this pre-congress was Dr. Saeed Gholamzadeh, the executive advisor of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, who gave explanations about the formation process of HIM (Health Intelligent Management) in this university and said: “The problems in the hospitals of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences forced us to move towards digitalization in this university and based on this, HIM was formed as a comprehensive and integrated management structure of managerial decision-making and business intelligence.”

While referring to the facilities available in the Health Intelligent Management system of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, in evaluating its output, he stated: “This system has led to the development of business intelligence and the improvement of the planning system in the university.”

“The adoption rate of technology in the field of digital health is affected by three factors: legislation, infrastructure and user experience.”

In the continuation of the pre-congress programs of the National Digital Health Ecosystem, a panel centered on " Ability of upcoming technological capabilities and possibilities " with the presence of Hamed Sajedi, chairman of the Board of Directors of Tanin Pardaz Pasargad Company, Mehdi Khodadadi, member of the board of directors of trade union organization and head of digital health commission of trade union organization, Dr. Rasoul Saraeian, senior consultant for digital transformation and strategy development, Sharif and Amirkabir University of Technology lecturers and Dr. Ali Maher; Assistant Professor of Health Services Management, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

Mehdi Khodadadi in a speech on the topic of "Examination of regulatory challenges and opportunities - digital health operator in Iran", expressing the importance of the regulatory issue in the field of digital health, said: “The adoption rate of technology in the field of digital health is different in the world and of course affected by the three factors of legislation, infrastructure and user experience.”

Stating that health is a sovereign domain in all countries, he emphasized the need to support start-ups and innovations, development in an integrated legal framework, public acceptance and trust, as well as the development of digital health infrastructure.

“A $13 trillion forecast for the contribution of artificial intelligence to the healthcare industry by 2030”

In this panel, also Dr. Rasoul Saraeian in a speech on the topic of "Generative artificial intelligence and its role in the challenges and trends of the healthcare industry" said: “We are facing a kind of imbalance between supply and demand in the healthcare industry. We are facing; Firstly, the costs have increased, secondly, the healthcare sector is facing a shortage of manpower, and thirdly, the world's population is aging. All these things have caused the health sector to become very important.”

Stating that the health and treatment field covers a detailed value chain from birth to death, he added: “If we consider the economic impact of this field, it should be said that the share of the health industry reaches a figure of about 16 trillion dollars per year.”

The lecturer of Sharif and Amir Kabir Universities of Technology also reviewed the historical course of the gradual evolution of the health industry and said: “When we talk about the evolution of the health industry, we must realize that the share of artificial intelligence in this field will reach about 13 trillion dollars by 2030, which of course algorithms are 10% productive in artificial intelligence success, technology and data are 20%, and people and processes are 70%.”

“Health is an inelastic commodity with high desirability”

Dr. Ali Maher, the assistant professor of health services management of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences also gave a speech in this panel on the topic of "the use of artificial intelligence in health" and said: “the type of health product is different from other products and its sensitivity is high from an economic point of view, and actually, it is an inelastic product and has great desirability.”

He further mentioned some of the applications of artificial intelligence in the field of health, including information storage, performing repetitive tasks, treatment plan, digital observation, virtual nurses, drug management, drug manufacturing, drug accuracy, health control and smart health system review. “Although artificial intelligence can be helpful, if the information is entered with bias, it cannot make the right decision, and then, as much as it is helpful, it can also bring many challenges”, he reminded in the end.

"The National Pre-Congress of the Digital Health Ecosystem" concluded with souvenir photos of the active members who contributed to this scientific event.