BOGE Kompressoren: Changing the Asia-Pacific Healthcare Sector

Nalin Amunugama has written a new article featured in the April issue of Hospital & Healthcare Management Magazine, which is available both digitally and in print. In the article, Mr Amunugama draws heavily from his 26 years of experience in the air compressor industry, and uses his insights to explore the upcoming ways BOGE air compressor technologies, along with developments in artificial intelligence, are challenging, disrupting, and revolutionizing the healthcare sector for the better.

Rapid Emergence of New Technologies in the Healthcare Sector

The cornerstone of Nalin Amunugama’s article is in recognizing the ever changing nature of technology markets. This is particularly important to the healthcare sector as keeping up with these changes has a profound impact on patients and their families. Without embracing new advances in medical care, patient quality of life stagnates unnecessarily. In the worst case scenarios, failure to incorporate new technologies results in patients dying when they could have been saved.

In Nalin Amunugama’s article, he focuses on the positives of the rapid emergence of new technologies, and how they can change healthcare for the better. He sees these changes as windows of opportunity through which companies such as BOGE Kompressoren can contribute to the growing need for cutting edge treatments, especially in the Asia Pacific market. The necessary contribution to medical care which manufacturing companies can provide, is increasing due to the healthcare sector experiencing, as Nalin Amunugama points out, “its most rapid pace of innovation ever”. This innovation is in itself propelled by the rapid changing of demographics within the Asia Pacific region. A recent United Nations study projects that by 2050, there will be an additional 1.3 billion people over the age of 60 across Asia-Pacific countries. This is most acute in countries like Japan where over a third of the population is expected to be elderly by the latter half of the 21st century.

Nalin Amunugama highlights that everyone involved in the healthcare arena now recognises that aging populations and increased rates of chronic illness are driving healthcare’s need for smart, advanced technologies. These can be integrated into medical treatments, increasing positive outcomes. As discussed in the Hospital & Healthcare Management article, research is now showing that healthcare in the Asia Pacifc region is rapidly increasing budgets to facilitate the research and acquisition of digital platforms and tools. This is to expedite diagnoses, improve treatments, and enable remote patient monitoring, which will reduce the need for some patients to stay in hospital for a lengthy duration.

All relevant businesses, from manufacturing to pharmaceutical and biotech, are now helping medical professionals meet the demand necessary for high quality patient care in the Asia Pacific region.

New Healthcare Technologies: Innovating Medical Treatments

Boge Asia-Pacific General Manager Nalin Amunugama, has identified three main types of technology which will be the future of healthcare throughout Asia and beyond: Artificial Intelligence when combined with Genomics; Smart Monitoring Systems; and Smartphone Applications. All three of these require both software and hardware engineering, which can only be met by a combination of established manufacturers and forward thinking startups.

Artificial Intelligence and Genomics

There are many examples of how artificial intelligence (AI) is being leveraged and developed to improve patient treatment. With the advent of deep learning, where AI is able to evolve and learn new skills to solve problems, medicine is proving fertile ground for this cutting-edge technology. While AI is being used in almost every digital field, when it is used to understand the unique and complex world of genomics it has the power to cure almost every disease imaginable. It may even one day be able to halt and reverse aging itself.

Genomics involves understanding and manipulating human DNA to make patients respond better to medications, and even make them immune to specific illnesses. In his article, Nalin Amunugama focusses on the Chinese startup company iCarbonX as an example of where AI and genomics could soon change the face of medicine.

iCarbonX is dedicated to creating a virtual roadmap for the human genome in order to understand and treat disease. This is to be achieved through iCarbonX’s individualised care platform strategy. The startup is leading the charge in developing systems and procedures to create personal care plans. This will allow medical staff to understand which treatments will have the best chance of success for any individual patient, based on their unique biology and DNA profile.

It is not just the private sector which is investing in using artificial intelligence to explore the human genome - China has launched its own Precision Medicine Initiative, including a massive investment of $9 billion over the next 15 years. This will lead to further AI based genome treatments, paving the way for higher survival rates and better quality of life for patients.

Smart Monitoring Systems

AI’s contribution to new advance healthcare technologies does not stop with genomics. A critical component for the successful expansion of medical treatments hinges on the healthcare sector being as energy efficient as possible. Energy waste and under utilisation of equipment significantly contributes to healthcare expenditure. As Nalin Amunugama insightfully observes in his article, by implementing artificially intelligent smart monitoring systems, the healthcare sector can reduce waste, freeing up its budget to invest on new treatments for patients.

A great example of this is in the use of air compressors. They are used in hospitals for ventilators, surgical tools, and a wide variety of other medical equipment. New advances in monitoring systems can ensure peak air compressor use, guaranteeing that they are being used in the most efficient way. BOGE is a leading specialist in innovative air compressor design and producing revolutionary new smart air compressor monitoring systems. The Airtelligence Provis 2.0 smart monitoring system allows medical professionals and their tech support to control up to 16 air compressors, with an intuitive touch display and clear, concise visualisation of how each compressor is performing. Likewise, BOGE’s Airstatus smart monitoring system provides control of up to 32 compressors, with remote access to the control system from any remote location. This is essential to ensure that compressors perform as they should when used as part of sensitive medical equipment which must operate continually and reliably.

BOGE’s industry leading air compressors and their smart monitoring systems are available globally, and are already contributing significantly to cost reduction and performance across the Asia-Pacific healthcare sector through its Singapore-based division.

Smartphone Applications

Lastly, Nalin Amunugama explores the use of AI within the smartphone app arena. We have already seen the expanding home medical care market thrive through Samsung, Apple, and Huawei’s inclusion of medical sensors in their smartphones. This trend is only going to continue, with smartphone and other home technologies being implemented to allow for rapid treatment at home. This is especially important when you consider that 90% of the elderly wish to stay at home rather than be placed in a hospital or nursing home.

Based in Singapore, the startup KroniKare is suggested by Nalin Amunugama as a great example of how hardware and software developments are allowing apps to be used to assess treatment needs. In KroniKare’s case, they have developed an app to assess chronic wounds. This is especially important in people who suffer from diabetes, where ineffective treatment of wounds and sores can result in gangrenous infection, and in some tragic cases the amputation of limbs. This app functions via an infrared camera which can be used to take a picture of a wound. Powerful machine learning then identifies when intervention is required and even what medical treatment would be most effective.

The fact that patients themselves will be able to use such apps to assess their medical needs, will significantly cut down on unnecessary visits by medical professionals, and save lives in the process.

Read Nalin Amunugama’s Article For More Insight

Nalin Amunugama’s article can be found on the Hospital & Healthcare Management website. There you will find his more in-depth analysis of the growing contributions companies such as BOGE can make to the treatment of patients in the healthcare sector throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

If you have any queries about the use of BOGE compressors in medical environments and how they can improve the reliable treatment of patients, please contact one of our highly trained staff today who will happily answer any of your questions.