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Technological advancement in the era of COVID-19
Affiliation.
- 1 Doctor of Business Administration, Westcliff University, Irvine, CA, USA.
- PMID: 33786181
- PMCID: PMC7958161
- DOI: 10.1177/20503121211000912
Regional and local governments worldwide are working tirelessly toward effective ways of addressing the COVID-19 crisis. During this time, the government has had to ensure that they provide full usage of technological means to confront the pandemic and discourse a wide range of COVID-19 related problems. Herein, this article will discuss the application of technical means and the advancement of technology in different sectors as a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis. Further, it highlights how government and health organizations have introduced new policies intending to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus. These new policies, such as lockdowns and social distancing measures, have resulted in technological advancement and new means of interaction with government, businesses, and citizens. Such changes include increased online shopping, as well as robotic delivery systems, the introduction of digital as well as contactless payment systems, remote working, the role of technology in distance learning, Telehealth, 3D Printing, and online entertainment. These technological advancements have been embraced all the way during this pandemic by a few countries around the world, with its limitation in some underdeveloped and developing countries.
Keywords: COVID 19; Internet; robots; technology; telehealth.
© The Author(s) 2021.
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Conflict of interest statement
Declaration of conflicting interests: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Coronavirus impact on online traffic…
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Advances in Technology to Address COVID-19
Edward kai-hua chow.
1 Cancer Science Institute of Singapore, NUS, Singapore
Pak Kin Wong
2 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
Xianting Ding
3 Shanghai Jiao Tong University, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai, China
This year has seen an unprecedented worldwide pandemic that has been brought on by the rise of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which results in COVID-19 (coronavirus 2019) infections. COVID-19 has impacted every aspect of our lives and has required the world to rapidly mobilize to address all aspects of diagnosis and treatment of this disease. COVID-19 has brought to light the challenges of managing a completely novel infectious disease with existing diagnostics and therapeutics that were insufficient to stem the spread of COVID-19. Thus, the resources allotted toward research and development and the global cooperation of governments, scientists, and clinicians to address COVID-19 required a pace of innovation in healthcare that has never before been observed in order to address this new disease. As a result of this effort, innovations in technology to better understand, detect, and treat COVID-19 continue to be reported every day. Here at SLAS Technology , we felt it was important to highlight these advances in technology that have been made to better address all aspects of COVID-19 detection and treatment. We present here a special issue that reports how technology has been used to address COVID-19.
The spread of COVID-19 across the world has shown that any hope for effective control of COVID-19 infection in the community requires the development of rapid and accurate methods for detecting COVID-19 infections. Applying existing and emerging viral detection technologies toward better COVID-19 diagnostics has resulted in incredible advances in pathogen detection innovations. Miniaturization assays that allowed for the accurate analysis and detection of SARS-CoV-2 viral nucleic acid detection or host antibody response to COVID-19 have proven to be critical. 1 , 2 , 3 While diagnostics initially required clinical laboratory tests, these technological advances have proven critical for field testing in the community or in less well-equipped remote diagnostic testing sites. In addition to advances in detecting COVID-19 infections, leveraging technology to better understand COVID-19 disease progression and immune response is critical to developing better therapies to combat this pandemic. As a result, the molecular mechanisms of COVID-19 infection, as well as an understanding of the critical immune responses and overall biological responses to COVID-19, have been uncovered in an amazingly short amount of time. Much of this has been a result of the use of critical technologies such as single-cell analysis technologies and advances in mass cytometry. 2
The last few years have seen a paradigm shift in the development and application of artificial intelligence (AI). This has been particularly true for life sciences and biomedical applications. In order to better understand and address COVID-19, AI has played a huge role in improving detection and therapeutic drug development. Of particular importance has been the development of multiple AI-based approaches toward improving COVID-19 detection through standard chest x-ray images. 4 , 5 Applying AI toward COVID-19 diagnostics through existing standard medical imaging allows for more rapid diagnosis through telemedicine and automated tools. As AI begins to pervade every aspect of medicine, it is inevitable that advances in AI technology will be important to overcoming this pandemic.
It is now clear that COVID-19 is a unique infection that affects a wide range of biological systems. One of the most affected systems has been pulmonary function. The ability to treat COVID-19 patients has often required the use of ventilators, and the lack of sufficient ventilators has been linked to poorer outcomes. The paucity of ventilators available in comparison to COVID-19 infection rates led to a number of advances in ventilator technology to increase their production speed and portability while lowering their cost. 6 These advances allow patients additional time to fight off infection as well as allow emerging therapies to work. This pandemic has adversely affected the lives of so many people in so many ways. But, it has also shown that when the global community comes together to collectively address a singular problem, amazing innovations in technology can happen that provide hope for a better future after the pandemic.
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Pandemic sparked key innovations, experts say
In the final installment of The Pandemic Puzzle: Lessons from COVID-19, leaders in government, academia, health care and business said biomedical and digital health advances of the last few years will help combat future health crises.
November 24, 2021 - By Stephan Benzkofer
Lessons learned over the past two years will not only improve the nation’s ability to handle the next pandemic but also lead to substantive gains throughout the health care system.
That was the message from industry, government, health care and academic leaders who spoke live or in pre-recorded conversations during the final session of The Pandemic Puzzle : Lessons from COVID-19 symposium series on Nov. 19. The Stanford School of Medicine and Stanford Graduate School of Business hosted the series.
“Now that we know that mRNA vaccines work, there is no reason we could not start the process of developing those for the top 20 most likely pandemic pathogen prototypes,” said Francis Collins , MD, PhD, the director of the National Institutes of Health , adding that this groundwork could allow for even quicker vaccine development. “We could have that part of the research already down the road a bit so if called upon, we could do this in faster than 11 months.”
Collins, who is retiring at the end of the year after leading the NIH for 12 years, praised the scientific community, calling its response to the pandemic a bright spot in an otherwise “pretty dark and difficult couple of years.”
“I can’t say enough about the way in which all of the scientists who were called upon basically said, ‘Yes, count me in,’” he said.
The first three Pandemic Puzzle sessions hammered home the dire impact of a long-term disinvestment in public health , the need to build partnerships with community leaders to eliminate health disparities , and the importance of creating a data system to collect key information to be used in a coordinated federal response .
In the fourth session, speakers found reasons for optimism across a range of activities, including regulatory adaptations, digital health care, technological innovation and private-public partnerships.
Janet Woodcock , MD, acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration , said the virtual inspections of clinical trials and manufacturing facilities necessitated by the pandemic could endure. “We had been pushing for more statistical monitoring versus physical monitoring of clinical trials because we feel it’s more effective,” she said. “Many of the practices are probably superior, and we’ll probably be sticking with those.”
In the same vein, telehealth technology not only helped hospitals ensure continuity of care through the pandemic but also accelerated acceptance of the tool by physicians and patients.
I can’t say enough about the way in which all of the scientists who were called upon basically said, ‘Yes, count me in.’
David Entwistle , president and CEO of Stanford Health Care , said that while the rapid jump to telehealth was sometimes hard to manage — virtual visits spiked from just 2% before the pandemic to more than 70% at the peak — its popularity has not waned. Stanford Health Care saw video visits nearly double from fiscal years 2020 to 2021.
Entwistle noted that the average in-person visit was 67 minutes whereas the average telehealth visit was 22 minutes, freeing up access with physicians, especially in-demand specialists.
“Technology has allowed us to be able to meet demand in a new way,” he said. “It allowed us to see more patients and to see them more frequently.”
Telehealth also greatly expanded access to mental health services, said Julia Hoffman , PsyD, head of mental health strategy at Teladoc Health .
“Stigma is a huge issue in getting mental health care,” she said. “We have used this opportunity to bring those folks into the fold via a lower level of commitment because they can do whatever kind of care they need on their phones, from the comfort of wherever they’re willing and able to receive it.”
Telehealth also enables patients to more actively manage their health, according to Megan Zweig , chief operating officer at Rock Health . “I think the power of virtual care is really unlocked when you think about continuous management and all the other solutions that can be integrated along that journey: dynamic content, asynchronous check-ins with a coach or a nutritionist or a therapist, ongoing patient-reported tracking.”
Tech and drug companies leap into the fray
One of the early challenges of the pandemic was in helping patients decide whether they needed to go to a hospital. David Rhew , MD, global chief medical officer and vice president of health care at Microsoft, said the pandemic sparked “incredible amounts of innovation” and that one of the first he saw take hold was an artificial intelligence-based chatbot, available online or via a mobile app, that walked people through a series of questions to help them decide the level of help they might need.
“That information was incredibly important because it had to be done at scale with large populations,” Rhew said, adding that the advice provided could continually be updated based on new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “It was our first opportunity to be able to start deploying these technologies.”
The potential of AI to process “small data” — an individual’s continual stream of health information — gathered through apps and wearables, has immense potential for signalling changes in that person’s health, Hoffman said.
Technology has allowed us to be able to meet demand in a new way.
Similarly, Entwistle said that AI’s potential with telehealth visits is immense, from helping process nonverbal cues to collecting fine data points.
Yet, for all the recent advances, the health care system is still in the early stages of digital health, Rhew said. Much work needs to be done to improve data interoperability and to create the data collection and analysis system to provide the vital information needed to stop an epidemic from becoming a pandemic, he said.
Dean Li , MD, PhD, president of Merck Research Laboratories, said he was struck by how much biotech and pharmaceutical companies communicated, cooperated and then pitched in during the pandemic. Each explored how their platforms and products might be used to help combat the pandemic.
“Every company was committed to doing something,” he said. “Not all of them succeeded, but I do want to give credit to everyone.”
Impact on children
Paul King , president and CEO of Stanford Children’s Health , said that it is understandable that parents want to make informed decisions about their children’s health care. “Some still have questions and are looking for assurance that getting their kids vaccinated is safe and the right thing to do,” he said. It’s important to communicate effectively and build trust with the public about vaccines, he added.
“A highly effective vaccine does no one any good if it remains idly on the shelf,” he said.
Grace Lee , MD, a professor pediatrics at Stanford Medicine and associate chief medical officer for practice innovation at Stanford Health Care, said the pandemic’s impact on children goes far beyond physical health, affecting their social and emotional well-being, educational outcomes and more. She said COVID has become the eighth leading cause of death in children in the U.S. and urged parents to get their children vaccinated.
“A COVID-19 infection can cause serious disease, hospitalization and death in children,” she said. “And it is now preventable.”
Lee, who is also chair of the U.S Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices , said the committee considers multiple factors in approving a vaccine, including safety and efficacy, but also how it will impact equity and access. That’s why it is critical that clinical trials include diverse populations, including diverse racial and ethnic groups but also children, pregnant women and people who are immunocompromised, she said.
Lee emphasized the importance of addressing public health crises in partnership with the community. “We really need to invest in prevention, and that includes our prevention infrastructure, including public health, health systems and community partnerships,” she said. “It’s often not the top priority for investment even though it has the greatest yield.”
- Stephan Benzkofer Stephan Benzkofer is a freelance writer.
About Stanford Medicine
Stanford Medicine is an integrated academic health system comprising the Stanford School of Medicine and adult and pediatric health care delivery systems. Together, they harness the full potential of biomedicine through collaborative research, education and clinical care for patients. For more information, please visit med.stanford.edu .
The majestic cell
How the smallest units of life determine our health
How COVID-19 has pushed companies over the technology tipping point—and transformed business forever
In just a few months’ time, the COVID-19 crisis has brought about years of change in the way companies in all sectors and regions do business. According to a new McKinsey Global Survey of executives, 1 The online survey was in the field from July 7 to July 31, 2020, and garnered responses from 899 C-level executives and senior managers representing the full range of regions, industries, company sizes, and functional specialties. their companies have accelerated the digitization of their customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years. And the share of digital or digitally enabled products in their portfolios has accelerated by a shocking seven years. 2 We looked at the past results for the degree of digital adoption reported in each of these areas of business operations. Based on the average percentage of adoption in each survey, we calculated a trendline to represent the average rate of adoption in 2017, 2018, and just before the crisis, which respondents were asked about in the 2020 survey. The acceleration time frame was calculated from the amount of time it would have taken to reach the current level of digital adoption respondents report if the precrisis pace of change had continued. Nearly all respondents say that their companies have stood up at least temporary solutions to meet many of the new demands on them, and much more quickly than they had thought possible before the crisis. What’s more, respondents expect most of these changes to be long lasting and are already making the kinds of investments that all but ensure they will stick. In fact, when we asked executives about the impact of the crisis on a range of measures, they say that funding for digital initiatives has increased more than anything else—more than increases in costs, the number of people in technology roles, and the number of customers.
To stay competitive in this new business and economic environment requires new strategies and practices. Our findings suggest that executives are taking note: most respondents recognize technology’s strategic importance as a critical component of the business, not just a source of cost efficiencies. Respondents from the companies that have executed successful responses to the crisis report a range of technology capabilities that others don’t—most notably, filling gaps for technology talent during the crisis, the use of more advanced technologies, and speed in experimenting and innovating. 3 We define a successful organization as one that, according to respondents, has very effectively implemented their initial responses to COVID-19-related changes.
Digital adoption has taken a quantum leap at both the organizational and industry levels
During the pandemic, consumers have moved dramatically toward online channels , and companies and industries have responded in turn. The survey results confirm the rapid shift toward interacting with customers through digital channels. They also show that rates of adoption are years ahead of where they were when previous surveys were conducted—and even more in developed Asia than in other regions (Exhibit 1). Respondents are three times likelier now than before the crisis to say that at least 80 percent of their customer interactions are digital in nature.
Chart: The COVID-19 crisis has accelerated the digitization of customer interactions by several years
Chart summary.
2020 adoption acceleration 1
- Global: 3 years
- Asia-Pacific: 4 years
- Europe: 3 years
- North America: 3 years
Date | Global | Asia-Pacific | Europe | North America |
---|---|---|---|---|
Precrisis | ||||
June 2017 | 20 | 22 | 18 | 25 |
May 2018 | 20 | 19 | 19 | 25 |
December 2019 | 36 | 32 | 32 | 41 |
COVID-19 crisis | ||||
July 2020 | 58 | 53 | 55 | 65 |
1 Years ahead of the average rate of adoption from 2017 to 2019.
McKinsey & Company
Perhaps more surprising is the speedup in creating digital or digitally enhanced offerings. Across regions, the results suggest a seven-year increase, on average, in the rate at which companies are developing these products and services. Once again, the leap is even greater—ten years—in developed Asia (Exhibit 2). Respondents also report a similar mix of types of digital products in their portfolios before and during the pandemic. This finding suggests that during the crisis, companies have probably refocused their offerings rather than made huge leaps in product development in the span of a few months.
Across sectors, the results suggest that rates for developing digital products during the pandemic differ. Given the time frames for making manufacturing changes, the differences, not surprisingly, are more apparent between sectors with and without physical products than between B2B and B2C companies. Respondents in consumer packaged goods (CPG) and automotive and assembly, for example, report relatively low levels of change in their digital-product portfolios. By contrast, the reported increases are much more significant in healthcare and pharma, financial services, and professional services, where executives report a jump nearly twice as large as those reported in CPG companies.
The customer-facing elements of organizational operating models are not the only ones that have been affected. Respondents report similar accelerations in the digitization of their core internal operations (such as back-office, production, and R&D processes) and of interactions in their supply chains. Unlike customer-facing changes, the rate of adoption is consistent across regions.
Yet the speed with which respondents say their companies have responded to a range of COVID-19-related changes is, remarkably, even greater than their digitization across the business (Exhibit 3). We asked about 12 potential changes in respondents’ organizations and industries. For those that respondents have seen, we asked how long it took to execute them and how long that would have taken before the crisis. For many of these changes, respondents say, their companies acted 20 to 25 times faster than expected. In the case of remote working, respondents actually say their companies moved 40 times more quickly than they thought possible before the pandemic. Before then, respondents say it would have taken more than a year to implement the level of remote working that took place during the crisis. In actuality, it took an average of 11 days to implement a workable solution, and nearly all of the companies have stood up workable solutions within a few months.
Chart: Executives say their companies responded to a range of COVID-19–related changes much more quickly than they thought possible before the crisis.
Change | Expected | Actual | Acceleration factor, multiple | Type of change |
---|---|---|---|---|
Increase in remote working and/or collaboration | 454 | 10.5 | 43 | Organizational |
Increasing customer demand for online purchasing/services | 585 | 21.9 | 27 | Industry-wide |
Increasing use of advanced technologies in operations | 672 | 26.5 | 25 | Organizational |
Increasing use of advanced technologies in business decision making | 635 | 25.4 | 25 | Organizational |
Changing customer needs/expectations | 511 | 21.3 | 24 | Industry-wide |
Increasing migration of assets to the cloud | 547 | 23.2 | 24 | Organizational |
Changing ownership of last-mile delivery | 573 | 24.4 | 23 | Industry-wide |
Increase in nearshoring and/or insourcing practices | 547 | 26.6 | 21 | Organizational |
Increased spending on data security | 449 | 23.6 | 19 | Organizational |
Build redundancies into supply chain | 537 | 29.6 | 18 | Organizational |
1 Respondents who answered "Entry of new competitors in company's market/value chain" or "exit of major competitors from company's market/value chain" are not shown; compared with the other 10 changes, respondents are much more likely to say their companies have not been able to respond.
2 For instance, increased focus on health/hygiene.
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The largest changes are also the most likely to stick in the long term
Of the 12 changes the survey asked about, respondents across sectors and geographies are most likely to report a significant increase in remote working, changing customer needs (a switch to offerings that reflect new health and hygiene sensitivities), and customer preferences for remote interactions (Exhibit 4). Respondents reporting significant changes in these areas and increasing migration to the cloud are more than twice as likely to believe that these shifts will remain after the crisis than to expect a return to precrisis norms.
Respondents report that the crisis spurred shifts in their supply chains as well. The nature of these shifts varies significantly by sector, and they have taken place less quickly than other changes because of contracts that were already in place before the pandemic. Respondents in consumer-facing industries, such as CPG and retailing, often cite disruptions to last-mile delivery (that is, who interfaces directly with customers). Other shifts, such as building redundancy in the supply chain, are reported more often in sectors that create physical products.
The results also suggest that companies are making these crisis-related changes with the long term in mind. For most, the need to work and interact with customers remotely required investments in data security and an accelerated migration to the cloud. Now that the investments have been made, these companies have permanently removed some of the precrisis bottlenecks to virtual interactions. Majorities of respondents expect that such technology-related changes, along with remote work and customer interactions, will continue in the future. Nearly one-quarter of respondents also report a decrease in their physical footprints. This signifies a longer-term shift than would likely occur among the 21 percent reporting a drop in their number of full-time equivalents—at some companies, that could represent a temporary move in the earlier days of the crisis. What’s more, when we asked about the effects of the crisis on a range of company measures (including head counts), respondents say that funding of digital initiatives has increased more than anything else—more than costs, the number of people in digital or other technology roles, and the number of customers. 4 The other measures tested in the survey were revenues, the total number of full-time equivalents, physical footprints, the number of channel partners, earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT), enterprise-wide capital budgets for 2020, and digital M&A budgets for the next 12 months.
We also looked at the underlying reasons some changes would or would not stick: their cost-effectiveness, ability to meet customers’ needs, and advantages for the business. In addition, we examined the relationship between the length of the crisis and the permanence of the changes as “new” becomes “normal” over time.
Of the 12 changes, remote working and cloud migration are the two that respondents say have been more cost effective than precrisis norms and practices. Remote working is much less likely to meet customer expectations better than it did before the crisis; the changes that have done so best are, unsurprisingly, responses to the increasing demand for online interactions and to changing customer needs. Investments in data security and artificial intelligence are the changes respondents most often identify as helping to position organizations better than they were before the crisis. Across these changes, remote working is the likeliest to remain the longer the crisis lasts, according to 70 percent of the respondents.
Technology-driven strategy for the win
We’ve written before about the need for digital strategies to be true corporate strategies that take digital into account. And from earlier research, we know that at leading companies, digital and corporate strategies are one and the same . The COVID-19 crisis has made this imperative more urgent than ever. While the alignment on overall strategy and strong leadership have long been markers of success during disruptions or transformations , the extent of technology’s differentiating role in this crisis is stark (Exhibit 5). At the organizations that experimented with new digital technologies during the crisis, and among those that invested more capital expenditures in digital technology than their peers did, executives are twice as likely to report outsize revenue growth than executives at other companies.
The results also indicate that along with the multiyear acceleration of digital, the crisis has brought about a sea change in executive mindsets on the role of technology in business. In our 2017 survey , nearly half of executives ranked cost savings as one of the most important priorities for their digital strategies. Now, only 10 percent view technology in the same way; in fact, more than half say they are investing in technology for competitive advantage or refocusing their entire business around digital technologies (Exhibit 6).
This mindset shift is most common among executives whose organizations were losing revenue before the crisis began (Exhibit 7). Those reporting the biggest revenue hits in recent years acknowledge that they were behind their peers in their use of digital technologies—40 percent say so, compared with 24 percent at companies with the biggest revenue increases—and also say that, during the crisis, they have made much more significant changes to their strategies than other executives report.
What’s more, respondents say that technology capabilities stand out as key factors of success during the crisis. Among the biggest differences between the successful companies and all others is talent, the use of cutting-edge technologies, and a range of other capabilities (Exhibit 8). A related imperative for success is having a culture that encourages experimentation and acting early. Nearly half of respondents at successful companies say they were first to market with innovations during the crisis and that they were the first companies in their industries to experiment with new digital technologies. They are also more likely than others to report speeding up the time it takes for leaders to receive critical business information and reallocating resources to fund new initiatives. Both are key aspects of a culture of experimentation.
The notion of a tipping point for technology adoption or digital disruption isn’t new, but the survey data suggest that the COVID-19 crisis is a tipping point of historic proportions—and that more changes will be required as the economic and human situation evolves. The results also show that some significant lessons can be drawn from the steps organizations have already taken. One is the importance of learning, both tactically, in the process of making specific changes to businesses (which technologies to execute, and how), and organizationally (how to manage change at a pace that far exceeds that of prior experiences). Both types of learning will be critical going forward, since the pace of change is not likely to slow down.
The contributors to the development and analysis of this survey include Laura LaBerge, a director of capabilities for digital strategy in McKinsey’s Stamford office; Clayton O’Toole , a partner in the Minneapolis office; Jeremy Schneider , a senior partner in the New York office; and Kate Smaje , a senior partner in the London office.
This article was edited by Daniella Seiler, an editor in the New York office.
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