Aside from Metaverse being one of the most exciting buzzwords in the recent year, there’s Health-Tech that has been getting a spotlight. 

Techsauce Global Podcast has talked with Dr. Dechowat Promda, cofounder and CEO of HealthTag with its goal not only innovate technology here in Thailand but change the way healthcare works through decentralized healthcare information infrastructure.

HealthTag was co-founded by Dr. Dechowat on the premise that everyone should be able to access help, as one doctor couldn’t isn’t readily available for thousands of patients amidst the pandemic. Believing that deep technology like Biotech, AI, and Blockchain is a big solution to the medical industry, HealthTag was built as a Web3 health infrastructure to connect the ecosystem, pulling in hospitals, care providers, and patients. The infrastructure connects all key parties, and shares healthcare information with high privacy, trust, and transparency, by having the patient as centric and enabling seamless interoperability across the ecosystem.

The Current World of HealthTech

Life and science and technology will be the next big thing for this world. But we need to accept that this industry always be a late developer

While it seems that Health-Technology has been maturing since the pandemic, Dechowat stated that the complexities of healthcare have made the industry a late bloomer to digital adoption given that the industry is faced with barriers that required a lot of work and long-term study to prove in terms of efficacy, safety, and accuracy for the patients. Thankfully, COVID-19 is a great catalyst for the high-tech industry to accelerate speeds unseen before.

New technology ranging from the likes of bioscience, biomedical tech, internet of medical things, AI, and other solutions for managing healthcare data are hastening development that would usually take more than two to years down to the span of months - reshaping the healthcare industry, enabling patients to live better and longer life.

Case of Application in Health-Tech solutions

For Dechowat, three of the most intriguing application of health-tech solutions is biomedical technology (BioTech), Personalized Medicine, and 3D Bioprinting.

With Biotech, its adoption is most evident during the most recent pandemic in the field of neurology. Mapping the genome of the virus allows the researcher to create vaccines and process clinical trials at breakneck speeds, saving millions of lives.

Then there is personalized medicine. For Dechowat, as a medical practitioner, medicine has been about diagnosing and treating people based on observation from the relative case, but it's commonly known that everyone is different. Advancement in Technology has enabled personalized medicine to precisely pinpoint those differences, eliminate guesswork, and tailor treatments suited to patients’ specific conditions.

It’s a like a Holy Grail for Healthcare

Then there is 3D bioprinting. As every day over 17 people died waiting for an organ transplant, 3D bioprinting would eliminate that chance, growing and printing functional organs for specific patients.

The Future of Healthtech and its Data 

During the past week, HealthTag was one of the three chosen candidates to join the London Tech Week 2022, a great opportunity for Dechowat on keeping tapping future trends of health technology, the direction of future technology, inside of the global leader of health tech innovation in UK allied NHS.

As for the future, he believes Web3 is the next big thing. With its capabilities to provide personalized experiences, decentralize data, and allow everyone ownership of their privacy, data security… and more human-like interaction. Though to make that happen, Healthcare data is a big issue across the world that need to be addressed.

1. Dechowat has given the example of the UK with its stride on healthcare data, citing the keynote from the Secretary of State for Health, focusing the three things including
2. Interoperability, to provide healthcare profession professional with all the information they need to support decisions based and on relevant information from the school system
3. Federation of data platforms to make data sharing more easily across the system and enable healthcare data integration
4. Data-driven technology to allow healthcare organizations to access anonymous information for research easily.

He stressed that it’s time for every country to be aware and have solid action to solve healthcare data issues.

The Stage of Thailand in Healthcare Development

In terms of Thailand, there’s a positive outlook for its healthcare industry still is a bit far from going full throttle with healthcare development. As a country that is full of talent in both medical practitioners and technicians. For the industry to move, collaboration among both parties, along with support from investors in both the private and governmental sectors.

Though, there are major challenges to making that happen.

Dechowat sees that toward the further push on the feasibility of the technology in the medical field, Thailand could use more focus on policy and open-mindedness to innovation.

Addressing Data Privacy

Along with the rapid development of Technology and specifically Web3, addressing people’s acceptance is a must, along with their data privacy. For Dechowat, Data is not the new oil but rather people. It is commonly known that companies use data to drive growth but privacy in data is often exploited. In the healthcare sector, data is about life, so imagining someone hacking your genomic data for their gains – these issues need to be addressed seriously. Health data must be double protected.

In the case of HealthTag, aligning with PDPA 2022 to support users’ awareness of data privacy, Dechowat mentioned that the company has utilized RFID technology with two-factor authentication to ensure its user can access infrastructure, simplifying the identity and consent process. He also shares the possibility of having an RFID implant that could enable a more secure authentication in the future.

What to be expected from Health-Tech in the Future

“We are moving forward with accelerated speed that couldn’t be imagined right now” 

As of now, Health-Tech industry is rapidly developing, especially for drug development where integration of AI technology will hasten the drug development process. Dechowat shares a prime example with research in AI being able to develop drugs a thousand times faster than using existing computational molecular docking models.

Replicating an organ’s function on a microchip is another thing, future drugs can be used to test on them rather than on a human, or animal – cutting down cost, and time, and offering a more sustainable solution to the traditional drug testing method.

Then there’s Genomic editing, cutting out the bad genes and potentially saving millions of people from fatal diseases in the future.

And lastly, expected to see the world of the healthcare ecosystem is all connected through blockchain, enabling secure private and transparent uses of data.

For him today is just the beginning of the journey toward a more decentralized future, and it is what HealthTag aim’s make happen.

Advice for Health-Tech Enthusiast 

Exciting to see something like this happening in Thailand that we are still innovating despite whatever challenges we have in terms of the economic downturn, and of course, the pandemic. Closing the Techsauce Global Podcast, he shared his advice for those who are prepared to venture into the field of Health Tech.

First is that there’s no easy start, given that the healthcare industry is a complicated industry with many layers of intricacies.

Secondly, there’s no quick win. Rather than looking to cash-in quickly, diving into the sector with the passion of sharing a legacy of providing betterment of people's lives is the way key to thriving.

Thirdly and most important thing, decentralizing is the king in this era. So, toward a more sustainable healthcare industry, it’s more on how we collaborate as leaders, synchronizing together in appropriate infrastructure, and building trust is the key to making a decentralized healthcare ecosystem.

Those wanting to get in touch with Dr. Dechowat, can be reached through his website [ https://healthtag.io/]

Or for more details, check out our Global Podcast