Healthcare Forum: Delivering Quality; Healthcare in Malaysia

AMCHAM held its first Healthcare Forum on September 21, 2016 at the Ritz Carlton Kuala Lumpur. The focus of this half-day program was more on the development of healthcare and the technology supporting it as it responds to the demands and opportunities of the 21st Century.

The forum kicked off with the opening keynote by MetLife’s Dr. Nirmala Menon, Executive Vice President and Head of Designated Markets and Health for Asia at MetLife. Dr. Nirmala emphasized on how data sharing, tracking and monitoring one’s health is important as the cost of healthcare will continue to rise. She hopes that everyone will have easy access to affordable and quality healthcare with expansions on innovation especially within rural areas.

Moderating the first panel, Dr. Menon was able to dive deeper into a focused discussion on healthcare development in Malaysia. Panelists John Mckendry, Country Manager – Malaysia & Brunei at Pfizer, Dr. Hanafiah Bashirun, Medical Advisor at International SOS, YBhg Dato’ Dr. Jacob Thomas, Chairman at Ramsay Sime Darby Healthcare we led into an interactive conversation around critical areas such as the sufficient allocation of funds by the government to ensure easy access to affordable and quality healthcare by the public, the role of public private partnerships and the need for greater collaboration to build a sustainable model.

After the break, the second panel on Technology Advancing in Healthcare was led by Nik Ariff Nik Omar, General Manager Public Sector Group at Microsoft. Joining him on the panel were Paul Smith, APAC Marketing Director at GE Healthcare, Dr. Benjamin Cheah, Clinical Associate Professor at International Medical University, Dr. Zubin Daruwalla, Director – Healthcare at PwC South East Asia Consulting and Lee Yu Kit, Executive Architect and Former CTO at IBM Academy of Technology. The panelists pointed out how technology can make a difference, however not by not taking over doctors but how it will be beneficial in providing access to expertise especially for rural areas. Some time was also spent discussing the pros and cons of shared data and the inherent privacy and security risks involved.

AMCHAM would like to take this opportunity thank our sponsors: MetLife and Pfizer for their generosity and for the speakers for spending time with AMCHAM to make this in making this event a success. Thank you to all our members and guests for your participation.

If you’re in the healthcare industry or in an industry related to healthcare and would like to see more events within this industry or would like to contribute your knowledge or expertise, we would like to hear from you. Please contact Kay at [email protected].