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| Source: The Economist Events. Rashmi Dalai, Managing Editor, thought leadership, Asia, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) (left) with Blackburn (right). |
A call for total change
Kanwaljit Soin, Founding President of Women’s Initiative for Ageing Successfully highlighted, "We have to change this linear version of life that exists currently, completely.”
Penny Wan, Regional VP and GM, JAPAC, Amgen, said that the current practice of waiting till people get quite sick before offering a solution is flawed. It would be better to predict and prevent, she said. "Find patients earlier, so they don't have to go through the debilitating consequences of a disease," she said.
"Innovate in how we do digital technology. Machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics are enabling us to do routine screening so we can predict and prevent a lot of the diseases especially in the chronic area. We could save hospitals and healthcare systems billions of dollars. It's no longer about adding years to life. It's really about adding life to those years."
Adapting to silver needs
Society will need to adapt to older people working for longer, on their terms. Wilf Blackburn, CEO, Prudential Singapore stated that “it is a myth that older people in Singapore don’t want to reskill and we need to demystify it".
Blackburn shared that in one case people working in a call centre were initially asked for data to train chatbots and later took over the training of chatbots themselves, some going on to train the trainers thereafter. Those others left in the call centre took on the more stimulating work of answering the complicated questions that the chatbots could not answer.
"Adopting practices in the working environment that are conducive to older people and to allow people to have flexible working hours is so important,” he added. "Practices that allow staff to have flexible work schedules, flexible processes where they work, where they choose when they work - certainly the older people appreciate that more."
Ecosystem needed
The consensus was that policy makers, financiers, tech companies and scientists need to collaborate if the region is to cope with and benefit from greater longevity.
"The topic of ageing is far too great for any sector to address on its own. We can't do it on our own, we can't do it on just technology. We need an ecosystem and we need different solutions," Wan declared. "Through focused and purposeful collaborations, we’ll be able to move from a health system of break-and-fix, to one of predict and prevent. Prevention measures lead to better health outcomes, lower costs and better quality of life for patients and their families.”
Blackburn also said that the new normal will require input from many constituents, and praised Singapore's SkillsFuture government reskilling programme for helping people to become productive assets in the workplace.
Blackburn also said that the new normal will require input from many constituents, and praised Singapore's SkillsFuture government reskilling programme for helping people to become productive assets in the workplace.
The need for more collaboration came through strongly in a panel titled Age of Innovation. Elizabeth Cha, Country Manager, Insilico Taiwan, talked about how AI and deep learning are being harnessed for molecular medicine.
"We can do cross-comparisons between different communities and behaviours. We can get results quickly and get into validation earlier, find better medicare, or new uses for old medicine," she said.
"We need to find a new way to find the best medical care for the community, especially for longevity issues. Data is important, not just medical data – tissue typing, tests, but we need to analyse data from social behaviour," she added. Cha called on experts from multiple disciplines to collaborate to produce that data.
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| From left: Dalai; Roy; Wan; Kim; Cha and Tan. |
What's hot in healthcare
When it comes to the solutions, Anne Kim, founder and Chief Executive, Alphavita Capital, said that the investment landscape for longevity had expanded from ageing to management of chronic diseases and the lifecycle of patients and customers. High net worth individuals and family businesses are interested in the phenomenon, she said, adding: "We are seeing more interest in broad investments in products, services and innovative business models leveraging technology today."
Specifically products that improve quality of life as people age are of interest, Kim said. In the services space the focus is on evolving business models for telemedical services and greater access to care; while the shared economy platform approach "to aggregate services and basically balance demand and supply of care" is also popular, she shared.
Finetuning the focus is important, however. Kim said that there is a lot more data needed to close the gap across the spectrum of care, which spans patients with chronic diseases, the sick, the dying, urgent care, and those who are frail. "We need to do more research what exactly patients need and what patients need to be served," she said. "The needs of men and women are markedly different."
Tan Hwee-pink, Academic Director, SMU-TCS iCity Lab, Singapore Management University, said that industry-led research projects at the university do involve AI, and identified a further challenge with following up on results. AI could identify seniors at risk for social isolation, or facing physical deterioration, for example. "If nobody knows what to do with that information it is as good as not having that information," he said.
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| Source: Prudential survey microsite. Ready for 100 logo. |
Prudential recently commissioned The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) to survey more than 1,200 residents in Singapore to find out if they are prepared to live long and well as life expectancy rises. Singapore, whose population has reached 5.6 million, will see 900,000 aged over 65 by 2030, and a rising number living to 100, the survey said.
Ready for 100: Preparing for longevity in Singapore found that Singapore residents often understand what they should do to live healthy lives, but may not practise what they preach.
Relationships
Three-quarters of respondents said they would be able to find some or all of the support they need in an unexpected life event. To avoid financial and emotional pressure from family members, the report recommended that people engage with "a more diverse set of communities and networks outside of their family".
Health and wellness
Singapore’s residents are largely aware of the importance of eating better and exercising regularly. They also have good intentions to do so, but urban living, a strong food culture - what Blackburn called an "eating culture like nowhere else" and conflicting definitions of what is “good” and “healthy” have created a gap between intent and action.
The study found that Singapore residents, on average, exercise below the recommended time per week and consume an excess of the recommended intake of sugar and processed grains. "This is contributing to rising rates of dementia, heart disease and diabetes," the study noted.
Financial health
Nearly eight in 10 residents do save, but it is challenging to save enough so that they do not have to work between the standard retirement age of 62 and 100. "As a result, residents need to reimagine how they plan their finances for older age. This includes investing as much in building their financial assets as they do in extending professional assets and careers," the report warned.
Work
The study notes that the Singapore government has mandated that employees cannot be forced to retire before the age of 62, and that eligible employees can be re-employed up to the age of 67. "However, to take advantage of these additional working years, ageing professionals need to have vision and courage to reimagine their careers and plan to work longer.
"Technology provides a number of opportunities for people to pursue new industries and provide education and reskilling opportunities, but it is only as useful as the initiative people take. Currently, a proactive attitude at work appears to be lacking. Only four out of ten residents say they actively seek new challenges at work," stated the report.
Changing behaviours
The psychology of persuasion - getting people to change their minds for the better - had some airtime during the summit. Nawal Roy, Chief Executive, Holmusk, has been engaging patients with digital tools to manage chronic diseases like diabetes for some years. "In chronic disease, engagement matters. Medication has value but if you are not able to engage with the patient on a regular basis you are not able to influence the outcome," he warned.
"We are banking on the fact that people who are unhealthy will do whatever it takes to become healthy," said a member of the audience. "If we took that away and see them at consumers and try to sell them something we would see better success."
Tan shared that older people are typically more resistant to advice from doctors, nurses, or staff from voluntary welfare organisations, whom they see as "big brother". "If (students) step in to speak to them they are more willing to speak to us," he said. "Seniors usually have a ringleader. Once you identify that ringleader, and if you get her on board (she will persuade the others)."
Roy said healthcare is "way behind the curve" when it comes to the science of psychology or behavioural science. "The good news is that it's changing at a very fast pace," he said.
Personas can help shape the narrative. He said there are those who are fully motivated, willing to change and able to change at one end of the spectrum, and those who are never going to change at the other. "In between you have different degrees of willingness and ability to change – that's the sweet spot," he said.
Roy also observed that solutions have to be recalibrated for different markets. "When you scale at the Asia level (that is a) problem even if you have a solution," he said.Peggy Liu, Chair, Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, has found common denominators in getting people to change behaviours, from making it fun to catching them young.
Liu is focused on food as it is the the single largest source of greenhouse gases and affects climate change, and the best "Trojan horse" to changing the world's problems. She said the best time to change dietary behaviour is between the ages of five and nine, with one of the basic messages being to "eat a rainbow every day".
"You have to start at ages five to nine. Once you've passed nine you're pretty much hopeless," she said.
Liu's organisation has come up with the Food Heroes initiative, which focuses on microlearning, gamification, and play based education to educate people more effectively about healthy eating and food waste. Focusing on the children means that the adults in the family become involved as they shop for the "rainbow food" that the children request, for example.
"We're doing it all wrong, talking to people's heads, talking about statistics. It's all about their sense of self love and prosperity... tap into people's dreams," she said.
Liu is also proposing public-private partnerships on rewarding people for positive food behaviour with a Blockchain-based system.
Liu is also proposing public-private partnerships on rewarding people for positive food behaviour with a Blockchain-based system.
