TWC Week 06

Today's lesson is about BioBusiness Revolution: Healthcare and Biomedical Sciences (Past, Present and Future). BioBusiness can be in terms of biomedical, agri-veterinary, environmental/Industrial that is commercial activity based on an understanding of life sciences and life science processes. The revolution of BioBusiness had been contributing to the socio-economic and it is definitely important in reflecting the country's Gross Domestic Product(GDP).


If we look at a region/country basis: in the US, contribution towards Healthcare is by far the largest. And in South Asia, the factors are completely arranged in a way that is opposite that of the USA. But people everywhere are increasingly investing more on biotechnology. The same toolset that is being created in the biomedical sector, will help in environmental and agricultural industry, bringing high value products to come into the market. Sophisticated researches uses new diagnostic tools to analyze special illness, create medicines for cures, alternatives pertaining to health/beauty care and more preventive routes on diseases which will increase the life expectancy of individuals.


With respect to reading 1, we need to not only look into raising healthcare and medical standards to a higher level, we also need to help the developing countries to gain access to rural areas where in urban areas health care services is flourishing. We cannot neglect the developing nations because most of the diseases and problems in health are situated in these nations. Therefore such basic healthcare infrastructure is necessary to be reach out in order for the people to be at least in the healthy state.


One of the interesting take away is one of the presentation about "MHealth." I think M-Health could be one of the possible implementations in the future that could possibly attend to situation that needs immediate assistance. Outdoor activities can be one of the danger activity because any incident could take place for example, falling down from the bicycle and it requires immediate help. Hence MHealth would then come in handy because doctors could possible attend to the fracture patient and provide necessary action. So it could reduce the seriousness of the fracture.


For further discussion, How can Singapore play a part in reaching out to the rural countries for healthcare services? By educating Singaporeans? Sending Doctors? Or perhaps having internships in this rural countries?


Healthcare is just one part of the BioBusiness, hence i'm looking forward to the next session of Agriculture and the Environment revolution. I would rate the lesson 8/10 because Healthcare is one of the important plan in the in2015 for Singapore and one of the presentations had covered the essence of the plan. :)