Well-Being or good health has become a very important issue, especially now. Because the stimulus from the COVID-19 situation has led to people’s awareness and behaviors changing, including the trend of developing innovations with the sustainability issue of “health” as a priority, amidst the epidemic situation that shows no sign of ending.
We have opened an online discussion screen with representatives from the private sector, government sector and civil society sector who are driving this issue in different contexts but have the same goal through the perspectives of 3 people from 3 industries under the sustainable development goal of Goal 3: Good health and well-being.
- Mr. Anuchit Wasinon, Managing Director, Digital Health Business, True Digital Group Co., Ltd.
- Dr. Angkana Lekhakul, International Health Policy Development Agency ( IHPP ), Ministry of Public Health
- Thanakorn Phromyot, Co-Founder and CEO of Young Happy, a social enterprise for the elderly
All three of them will share their experiences and reflect on this issue so that we can understand each other better.
COVID-19 reinforces health issues, connects society and economy
Dr. Angkana raised the issue that when talking about good health, most people think only of when they are sick and treating diseases. However, in the dimension of the word ‘health’, it has a greater meaning than that. Sukha means good. ‘Health’ is a state of goodness. And the English language does not use the word ‘Health’ but uses the word Well-Being, which goes beyond treating diseases.
It can be explained in 4 dimensions that are comprehensive. The first dimension is being strong and not sick. The second is a mind that is not stressed and not depressed. The third is a state of warm family, strong community, and good state welfare. The last dimension is the spiritual aspect that allows people to know right from wrong and know their own duties.
And he pointed out that the COVID situation has made people aware of the interconnectedness of all dimensions, making the word “well-being” relevant to everything because it is clear that COVID has affected society and the economy, such as people losing their jobs, people being poor, and incomes decreasing, which also affects the country’s economy. Or the lockdown measures, where children cannot go to school, also affects education.
On the other hand, the problems of poverty, migrant workers, or entertainment clusters also exacerbate health problems. If these problems cannot be controlled, they will become disease outbreak clusters, including the problem of poor people who cannot access medical treatment, such as the Khlong Toei community cluster, construction worker camps, or prisons.
Health care in the New Normal, technology leads, innovation arises
Mr. Anuchit, as a leading private sector in technology, added on this point that in the COVID situation, it is clear that technology plays a significant role, such as being able to go to the hospital in the past, now they are unable to go, or people themselves may not want to go to the hospital.
Therefore, the introduction of technology such as Telemedicine to play a role in patient care, or news that people with obesity and high blood pressure have a high chance of dying, this awareness creates a greater awareness of taking care of their health. It can be seen that people have started exercising and using various watches to check their own health, which is a perfect intersection between technology and health awareness.
Mr. Thanakorn shared that Young Happy , a social enterprise, has also used technology to create innovations to solve the problems of the aging society. The goal is to create a happy society for retirees, focusing on active aging so that the elderly can be healthy, have fun, feel valuable, and be self-reliant. Young Happy was created as an online community for the elderly, with activities for the elderly to meet and learn new things, such as technology for calling a taxi, and being able to use a smartphone when feeling lonely.
Currently, there are approximately 100,000 members and approximately 30,000 people registered through the application. From the first start, we encountered challenges in expanding the area. As a social enterprise, we raised funds ourselves from people we trust and used opportunities from the competition until we had a clearer business model. Today, we have a team of approximately 20 people, who are young people who are interested, ready, and have potential.
Aging Society, One of the Mega Trends in Health
Dr. Angkana gave a clearer picture of the aging society, saying that it is a challenge for Thailand, which is following Japan, i.e. it is an inverted pyramid with a relatively large proportion of elderly people. This raises the question of how to cope, which shows that “aging” is not a problem or a burden on society. We can be active citizens who live our daily lives without having to rely on anyone. This means living happily on our own, not getting sick, chronically ill, or being bedridden at home. This has to start with the family, i.e. how to make the family understand the elderly whose thinking has changed.
Thanakorn shared his personal perspective that having someone close to him who is elderly raises the question of how we will grow old. Some people may think that they will encounter the problem of aging at the age of 60, but in fact, people encounter this condition twice. The first time is when parents get old and retire, which will encounter side effects, when parents change, care changes, understanding changes, and communication changes. The other time is when you yourself enter the elderly stage. You may have the mindset that aging is something scary that everyone has to face. But in reality, those who are prepared and those who are not prepared are different. Some people in their 70s look like they are in their late 50s, but they still look healthy and hopeful in life. But some people in their late 50s, about to retire, feel that they don’t know what to do next. Therefore, this is a matter for people of all ages. For Young Happy, he sees that sometimes when there is communication that Thailand is entering an aging society, it may seem negative. But if you look at it from the other side, 80% of the 14 million elderly people are still healthy. Therefore, the question is how to make this group of people stay active for as long as possible before becoming homebound and bedridden.
Change from sick care to health care, taking care of your health continuously.
Mr. Anuchit believes that if it is not necessary, the elderly do not want to go to the hospital. Therefore, he would like to focus on taking care of people of all ages, especially the elderly, to be healthy in order to reduce the number of hospital visits. He also talked about the work of True Digital Group, which focuses on having people take care of their own health by introducing technology to help with regular follow-up. However, not every household in Thailand can buy equipment to check their own health. Therefore, the question is how to distribute various equipment or measuring devices everywhere. True Digital has a project to create a Health Corner at Lotus or Makro, which is a booth with a blood pressure monitor.
And in the future, there may be a Body Composition machine that measures how high your body fat is and what your muscles are like. The measurements will be displayed in various values, such as BMI. If Thai people assess these things regularly and have their doctors check the results every three months, it will encourage them to take care of their own health, like getting frequent health check-ups instead of getting a yearly check-up that encourages them to take care of themselves just 1-2 months in advance. It is a change from sick care, seeing a doctor after being sick, to health care, meaning how to not get sick.
Self-reliance – Access to 2 important keywords to drive a healthy society
Dr. Angkana summarized that from listening to True and Young Happy’s work, she was interested in the key words that match what the government is currently working on, which are self-reliance and accessibility. “Self-reliance” must go through “accessibility” because if there is a space that allows people of all ages and genders to access and rely on themselves in taking care of their health, that is the goal of disease prevention and control.
He pointed out that what TRUE is doing will help reduce hospital congestion significantly, especially for patients with chronic diseases who need to go to the hospital, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, especially in urban areas or Bangkok, which is a special area that is different from other areas in the provinces. Because when Bangkokians get sick, they tend to use private services, even though there is already universal health insurance, whether it is the gold card, civil servant rights, or social security rights. But the problem is that there are not enough of these service units. Therefore, the private sector plays a large role. As for tele-medicine, it is a strong trend that the government is moving towards, but it is still not good at it. Therefore, we would like to see cooperation from the private sector and civil society.
Technology is the answer, bringing all parties together on the same platform.
Mr. Anuchit added that we have the same idea and the same goal. True Digital Group is a technology company that is determined to create a platform to help drive prevention and is looking for partners from both the public and private sectors by using technology to enable “Providers” such as healthcare service providers, hospitals, clinics and “Payers” such as private insurance companies, government insurance, including startups that do health care business such as startups that make health monitoring devices such as sleep quality measurement devices, blood sugar measurement devices to be together on the same platform, allowing access to doctors or receiving teleconsultations for certain diseases.
And if everyone helps, the movement will go faster, which True, True Digital Group and subsidiaries are ready to take care of, such as providing a Health Corner that can be accessed everywhere, allowing everyone to go to the supermarket to measure their blood pressure every week. At the same time, it also points out that the trend in the next 5-10 years will have a Healthcare system that is a Digital twin, which is health data in all aspects that are daily activities, such as blood pressure, BMI, which will be sent to the medical team or AI that will take care of them all the time to see how each person is. If anyone is abnormal, it will alert the doctor who is taking care of them without having to wait until they are sick or when there is an abnormality, there will be a team to call to ask about symptoms. It is a true preventive health care that can reduce the country’s budget enormously.
The new generation uses the SE model and expands on ideas to create happiness.
Mr. Thanakorn continued that from his experience in social business for 4 years, he found that solving social problems is not easy. The important thing is personnel. However, if reflected from the perspective of the Social Enterprise group, it is found that there is a good trend and quite a bit of growth because more people are interested in this issue. In addition, the new generation is starting to question the meaning of life, talking about sustainability, so they stand up to solve problems from many angles, using Social Enterprise as an organization model. If the public and private sectors open up opportunities for procurement or working or cooperating with Social Enterprise more, it will be possible to expand the good ideas from the new generation even more.
For example, Young Happy’s work during the COVID crisis has an Online Challenge project that tries to spread cooperation and care to other regions. 80% of its members are in Bangkok and 20% are in provincial cities such as Chiang Mai and Chonburi. The Young Happy team will send assignments for the elderly at home to solve every day and compete with their friends for 21 days so that they don’t have to do the same thing over and over again until they get bored or lonely, such as taking a photo of watering plants, drinking 8 glasses of water, cooking 5 different colors of food, singing a song and giving reasons for those activities. Then share them as a community. During the first wave of COVID, almost 2,000 people joined this activity. In addition, there is the Young Happy Time Bank project that takes the elderly with potential to help underprivileged groups, such as teaching the elderly in the community or visiting the elderly in nursing homes. This creates unity and encouragement for each other. The elderly who help others will feel that they are still valuable and useful. The latest project is Online Learning, a university of life for the elderly called Happy Lean, which offers various classes created specifically for the elderly, which can be learned via mobile phones.
The government, private sector, and civil society work together to design a seamless, integrated healthcare system.
Dr. Angkana sparked that in the future, seamless and integrated healthcare will occur if all sectors help design, think about what they want our society to be like, and then help do it. From what we see in the private sector or civil society, such as TRUE, which uses its strength in technology to apply in designing for health or well-being, or Young Happy, which starts from the direct experiences of family members and rises up to create a society for the elderly.
Therefore, no matter where we are, we can participate in designing and doing it together. Even at the individual level, we can start with ourselves by eating good and nutritious food, exercising, and changing our behavior. As for the government sector, we can do things that other sectors cannot do, such as issuing legal measures or social measures, such as laws on drunk driving and helmets, which are fundamental health problems. We can also find ways to work together with others in partnership, bringing the private sector and civil society to work together, set the direction of design together, and do it together so that there will be seamless coordination and work, which is a complete cycle.
And finally, I would like you to look at the dimension of well-being more deeply because not being sick may not be enough for good health in this era. But it must include being happy in life, having goals in life, and at the social level, we must help answer the question of how we will make our families warm, our communities strong, and our country peaceful and have good welfare. Then we will achieve the goal of sustainability collectively called Well-Being or having true good health.
And these are the perspectives and experiences of the three panelists on creating jobs that meet both value and worth for sustainable growth.
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Episode: “Proactive health care for good health”
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