Vaccination against COVID-19 has become a crucial stepping stone for nations globally to quickly reopen their economies and usher their people into the new normal.

During the "VacciNATIONS: What It Takes for Countries to Achieve the New Normal?" session at the HIMSS21 APAC Conference, Dr Haruki Matsumoto, director-general of the Department of Health and Social Welfare under Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, shared about the country's strategies in protecting its people and economy from the pandemic.

Ming Tang, national director of Data and Analytics at NHS England, also delivered some insights from United Kingdom's progressing vaccination drive. 

HIMSS UK Chief Clinical Officer Dr Charles Alessi and Alan Goh, assistant chief executive at Integrated Health Information Systems in Singapore, joined the session to speak about Asia-Pacific's ongoing vaccination efforts. 

In order to speed up vaccinations, both the UK and Singapore emphasised the use of data. The information on vaccine uptake in the UK, for example, is important to help identify areas where they need to raise inoculations. A point-of-care solution has been adopted to track uptake and show supply availability.

The Singaporean government, on the other hand, focused on raising volume and capacity. Goh mentioned that within four months since the start of their vaccination drive, the government was able to build around 200 inoculation sites. Its partnership with the private sector is also vital; private care providers have been mobilised to support vaccinations. 

Technology, of course, has played an important role in the programme. Goh pointed out that they were able to establish tech integrations to support real-time recording of vaccine uptake. "We focus[ed] on making sure that the vaccination process was very smooth and that we were able to achieve high volume."

To effectively harness data in speeding up vaccinations, Goh stressed that "resilient" systems have to be in place and ensure data accuracy. He said that COVID-19 immunisation policies around vaccines are changing. "So the systems actually have to be quite agile and have to adapt to changing policies."

Meanwhile, as health systems have been swamped with COVID-19-related work, the management of non-communicable diseases has stopped, as Alessi frankly put it. "Nobody apparently was having cardiovascular diseases for a few months. Of course, they were, and of course, they were dying, and of course, they were deteriorating."

This is where AI can potentially enter, he said, especially in helping organisations in prioritising cases among heaps of "significant" workload around managing NCDs. 

"I think there are opportunities to use technology. I think there are opportunities to fundamentally change our care. And clearly, we're at the stage where we're going to start using them, mainly because we have no choice."

The HIMSS21 APAC Conference took place on 18 and 19 October. All sessions can be accessed on-demand by registering here. If you have already registered, log in here.