Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 56 | Page 38

CIO OPINION
Technology has been at the core of some of the most important interventions to combat the virus – from how we tracked its spread , to how we studied it .
Jacob Chacko , Regional Director – Middle
East , Saudi and South Africa , Aruba

How can healthcare organisations overcome a COVID-19 data overload to avoid digital slowdown ?

As we enter the second year of a global pandemic , it ’ s clear that COVID-19 makes no exemptions in its attack , our economies have been hit hard and almost every sector across the world has faced disruption , with many pushed to breaking point . This is especially true of the healthcare sector . Jacob Chacko , Regional Director – Middle East , Saudi and South Africa , Aruba , a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company , tells us how the COVID-19 pandemic at its peak brought with it a myriad of knock-on challenges for healthcare organisations – not least a momentous data-hangover in the wake of radically accelerated Digital Transformation .

As we enter the second year of a global pandemic it ’ s clear that COVID makes no exemptions in its attack , our economies have been hit hard and almost every sector across the world has faced disruption , with many pushed to breaking point . This is especially true of the healthcare sector . At its peak it struggled with extreme surges of patients , working round the clock to care for both COVID and non-COVID patients , managing safety practices such as social distancing and PPE , and delivering new virus tracking systems . Undoubtedly , this has taken its toll on the people behind the masks in ways we cannot imagine . But it has also brought with it a myriad of knock-on challenges for healthcare organisations – not least a momentous data-hangover in the wake of radically accelerated Digital Transformation .

COVID the catalyst
Don ’ t get me wrong , the appetite for Digital Transformation in healthcare was rumbling away long before COVID-19 hit . We were already seeing promising signs of uptake and only last year the sector was among the furthest ahead in its adoption
38 INTELLIGENTCIO AFRICA www . intelligentcio . com