At the heart of healthtech innovations, the place of a great EHR solution is not negotiable. Like they say, data is the new oil; in the health sector it’s the same story. All healthtech innovations have their foundation on data, and by implication a working Electronic Health Record solution.

The EHR solution serves as a house to health sector data; but beyond that, it is primarily a healthtech innovation with the goal of making healthcare delivery easier and seamless. It’s relevance however outweighs that and in the end, it powers other innovations in the space. Start with Telehealth or telemedicine; The doctor wouldn’t be able to properly and effectively diagnose patients and recommend medications if he cannot access the patients records from previous encounters. This is obviously served by an EHR solution. In addition, most of the prescriptions and doctor’s comments, since it’s a virtual meet up, are delivered using the same EHR system.

Now let’s take the huge invasion of Artificial Intelligence in medicine. AI algorithms are increasing the efficiency of healthcare delivery in a lot of ways one of which includes helping to detect early stage disorders like cancer and heart attack, and also in speeding up medical research and vaccine development.

AI basically works with data. The effectiveness of these algorithms is totally dependent on the quality and quantity of data used. This can’t be powered by paper records, only EHR solutions have the ability to deliver the needed dataset in the needed quality. This is why practices and institutions that are planning for the future of healthcare delivery are already migrating to Electronic Health Record solutions.

Payments and Health insurance is also another area where technology is improving operations in healthcare. Well built EHR solutions have the ability to power payments within their platforms and also effectively enforce health insurance schemes. This helps practices easily evaluate their earnings and tell what level of the value chain they have more profits from.

Any practice that is looking to still feature in the future of healthcare delivery, with respect to the massive disruptions caused by technology across different sectors needs to already migrate their operations to a functional Electronic Health Record system to serve as a pillar to coming innovations.

The painful death of David Ntekim Rex, a young Nigerian IT genius, who was fatally shot by armed robbers in Lagos, threw social media users into mourning. According to a Twitter user, Roy Mustang, with the Twitter account, @Magnanimous_, David was shot around 8 pm at an undisclosed place and date. The police were alerted by undisclosed person/s but when they came, they did not take David to the hospital immediately. Roy insisted the police officers, who were drunk and misbehaving, were more interested in determining why the dying man had a laptop than in saving his life. He also said the officers were taking pictures while David gasped for air. Nevertheless, they took David to three different hospitals, the last one being LUTH. But then, the doctors and nurses in those hospitals ignored the dying man until he finally gave up the ghost.

The story is quite pathetic, considering that no one offered help to David when he needed it the most. He was not helped by the citizens, who would rather call the police than rush him to the hospital. The police came and concentrated on building a report instead of helping him receive medical attention. When the needful was finally done, the doctors and nurses that swore an oath to save lives abandoned David. If this is truly how it happened, then the system failed David. But, unlike what many Nigerians say, David wasn’t failed by Nigeria, but by Nigerians – the assailant(s), the witnesses, the police, the doctors, and the nurses.

The Duty of the Witnesses to David
According to Section 2(1) of the Compulsory Treatment and Care for Victims of Gunshot Acts, 2017, “Every person, including security agents, should render every possible assistance to any person with gunshot wounds and ensure that the person is taken to the nearest hospital for immediate treatment.” This section made it obligatory that you and I should ensure that victims of gunshots receive immediate medical attention. Maybe the people that would rather call the police than take David to the hospital are not aware of their duties to the injured man. It is also possible they didn’t want to get involved because they don’t know David or they are not sure of his dealings with his assailants. So, they would not want to be invited by the police to write a statement, or worse, be held by the hospital to pay for the medical services rendered to the injured. They might not have prior knowledge that Section 8 of this Act provides that they should not be harassed or interrogated unnecessarily when they help gunshot victims. So, to avoid trouble, the easiest thing these people could do was push the responsibility to the government. Who knows, David could have made it if someone was brave enough to act like the scriptural Good Samaritan.

The Duty of the Police Officers to David
Even though the officers that visited the crime scene must have discovered David was fatally shot, they did not take him to the hospital immediately. Their instant investigation of the victim and the cause of the gunshot were inappropriate. Even though Section 3(1) of the Compulsory Treatment and Care for Victims of Gunshot Acts, 2017 requires that officers should commence an immediate investigation into the circumstances that led to the shooting, they should have used their discretion to understand that David’s life should be saved first. Because of their lack of discernment, Nigeria was thrown into mourning.

However, the actions of the police officers show that it is possible these men received no training on moving injured persons or even offering first aid. It could be they delayed moving David because they lacked basic knowledge of how to do so. If this is the case, then a lot of things are wrong with the NPF. Nevertheless, they should have placed a call to the people that could handle the situation immediately if they couldn’t do so. But assuming their drunkenness, according to Roy, contributed to their slowness could not be determined since there is no evidence to prove it.

The Duty of the Hospital Staff to David
Section 1 of the Compulsory Treatment and Care for Victims of Gunshot Acts, 2017 states, “As from the commencement of this Act, every hospital in Nigeria whether public or private shall accept or receive, for immediate and adequate treatment with or without police clearance, any person with gunshot wound.” This section gives hospitals the right to save the lives of gunshot victims without fear of police harassment or sanctions. But according to the story narrated by Roy, the hospitals to which David was taken did not attempt to help – not even to apply first aid. They ignored the poor boy until there was no pulse. Roy did not state why these doctors and nurses acted this way but, whatever reason it could be, they failed David.

Did Nigeria Fail David?
It is assumed by many that Nigeria failed David. They believe David would not have died if he were in a developed country. Of course, if things work the way they are supposed to, the people that called the police would have taken David to the hospital by themselves without fear of police harassment and extortion, or the hospital’s demand for money deposit and victim’s details. Further, if the police are well trained, they would have known what to do at the right time. As for the hospitals that failed to attend to David at the critical moment, if sanctions are placed on hospitals for negligence, things like this will not be heard of. Finally, if there were ambulances and ever-ready paramedics at people’s disposal, they, and not the police, would have been called. This is to say that David was a victim of a bad and ill-working society.

The death of David Ntekim revealed the plight of many gunshot victims, who lost their lives as a result of their injuries. A lot would have survived if help came to them on time. Many Nigerians that would readily come to the aid of accident victims avoid those with gunshot wounds because of harassment, interrogations, detentions, and, possibly, extortions that would accompany it. Maybe if these factors are taken care of, people will readily be of help. I strongly believe David would have had a chance if the passers-by or witnesses took him to the hospital before contacting the police.

Tencent Holdings Ltd and China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group are partnering to build smart vehicles. Geely said Tuesday it has signed an agreement with Tencent to build smart vehicle cockpit, autonomous drive and low carbon vehicles.

Geely said in a statement that both companies will jointly revolutionize the intelligent car sector by developing smart car cockpits to have more mobile and mobility service applications, and explore testing of autonomous driving.

“The global automotive industry is facing profound changes and new technologies are restructuring the industrial ecology,” An Conghui, President of Geely said. “Looking ahead to the future, we must be open to cooperation, joint development, and new innovations. With a cooperative relationship spanning three years, Geely and Tencent is now deepening their partnership and working to digitalize the entire automotive value chain.”

“At the same time, we hope to fulfill our responsibility to society by jointly promoting sustainable low carbon development throughout the automotive industry,” he added.

It is the latest of such partnerships in the evolving self-driving vehicle technology.

Tencent and Geely have a history of cooperation that dated back to 2018, when they formed a joint venture with China Railways to develop high speed railway mobility service applications. In 2019, ECARX, a subsidiary of Geely, signed a cooperative agreement with Tencent Auto to jointly develop intelligent connectivity services, AI, cloud services and joint user operations.

Tecent has successfully had its applications integrated into many car models, including Geely and Lynk & Co.

Tang Daosheng, senior Executive Vice President of Tencent said the partnership will yield growth considering the success of the companies’ cooperation so far.

“Tencent and Geely have cooperated with each other since 2018 and have achieved much together. Today, the digitalization of the mobility sector has reached a new level and the time for Geely to digitally transform all aspects of their automotive product lifecycle is upon us.

As Geely’s strategic digital partner, Tencent hopes to help the Geely Auto Group further its digital transformation and promote further sustainable development of the automotive industry,” he said.

Geely owns Volvo cars and holds 9.7% of Damler, while Tencent has investments in Electric Vehicle (EV) makers, Tesla and Nio. Geely said earlier this month that it would launch a smart electric Vehicle company with Baidu Inc and later form a separate venture with Foxconn to provide contract manufacturing for automakers.

Tesla’s success and Elon Musk’s slingshot to the top of Billionaires Index appear to have ignited the interest of tech companies in smart and electric vehicles.

Chinese web search giant, Baidu, had earlier announced it’s going into partnership with Geely, in a deal which it will provide smart driving technologies while Geely will be in charge of car design and manufacturing.

Alibaba and Chinese state-owned carmaker SAIC Motor had teamed up to produce electric cars. Ridesharing company Didi, and BYD, producer of EVs have co-developed a model for ride-hailing.

In the US, Amazon, Apple and Google are already in the business of smart electric vehicles production. With the increasing interest in the fast-growing industry, Facebook is expected to announce EV production partnership very soon.