The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Doctors Hospital’s chief executive yesterday said COVID-19 has shown that the public and private healthcare systems must be better integrated to enhance medical care for Bahamians.

Dr Charles Diggiss, also the BISX-listed healthcare institution’s majority shareholder, told a webinar to mark World Tourism Day: “The first lesson that the pandemic taught us is maybe, because of limited resources nationally, we want to relook at whether this opportunity, this revisiting of our tourism industry, whether this is one of those instances where we look at public and private medicine.

“Typically we looked at public or private. The mindset in this particular instance is this opportunity deserves a combination, and concerted efforts, to blend both the public and private sector to look at the network of provision of services, all connected. This is the leverage of technology.

“Within this network, the one thing that would make an immediate difference is the placement of mid-level providers in remote locations. We should move away from thinking that it needs a nurse or a doctor, both of whom are relatively expensive, and perhaps we need to consider what has been done.”

Dr Diggiss further elaborated on the role physician assistants, who have been in existence since the 1960s. They are especially prominent in pharmacies or large department stores in the US.

He added: “Once we’ve networked and connected, and blended both private and public resources, let’s look at the placement of mid-level providers, the physician assistant and the nurse practitioners.”

Carlos Palacious, managing director of BRON Ltd, a subsidiary of Caribbean Coastal Services, told the same webinar organised by TCL Ltd: “The amazing thing about technology is it’s a level playing field.

“Let’s just look at the habitat mapping and management. Before, we used to have to get into helicopters and private planes in order to monitor our beach systems. Now, we can put a drone up that cost a few hundred dollars, use satellite imagery and we can map and model all of our coral reef systems, our wetland systems and, of course, our beautiful beaches that our tourists like. Technology allows us to map and model underwater systems, over water systems and above air systems.”

Further underscoring that “technology is the way to go”, Mr Palacious added: “Several of our offshoot companies...... Eden Farms, for example. We grow in containers. One 40 foot container grows an equivalent of five acres of land, only using a few gallons of water a day.”

He explained that this is how Eden Farms and BRON Ltd are using technology to drive efficiencies in production, and urged attendees to look at the tourism product from that perspective.

Shana Lee, managing director of KPMG Bahamas, said: “Professional advisory boards can play a significant role in helping tourism companies and investors to assess and plan for projects in the space. That could be through deal support, due diligence, public-private partnerships, project financing, new technology and digital transformation. The list goes on and on.”

Speaking about KPMG’s “true value” initiative, Ms Lee said the accounting firm has created a “new methodology that helps to measure the economic, social and environmental impacts that a company or project has on a society” and how the firm puts a financial value to that impact.

“What this means is instead of just establishing the market value of a company or project based on cash flows or what their competitors are doing, we’re taking a broader view and a more holistic view at what a project’s contributions are to a society as well as what its drawbacks are,” she added.