By Verghese V Joseph –
As the world grapples with the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, how is the church and its wide range of institutions – education, healthcare organisations and relief service-oriented networks – dealing with the emerging new world and economies of scale?
Ever since the traumas such as World War II and the 1918 Spanish flu, the Corona epidemic has stunned the world with almost 219,000 infections and more than 8,900 deaths so far.
Over the years the church in particular, has with noble intentions, put in place massive educational, healthcare infrastructures, relief and service-related networks. In this context, some religious and intuitional heads have been asking me what is the business media perspective on the way forward for these institutions from a church standpoint, post-COVID-19 scenario? While I’ve had some initial way-forward strategic discussions with them, there appears to be no clear-cut direction on the road ahead. However, newer business opportunities seem to sprout.
At the same time, it is worth pondering to conduct a situational analysis, create and size up opportunities based on the inherent and fundamental strength of these institutions. Mind you, most of them have been built on rock-solid value systems. Hence, it is all the more important the Mission and Vision attributes of these organisations are revisited and concretised. As the world stares at the impending global recession period, what are the options that church and institutions left with? They have been built ground-up to become reputed institutes of excellence, and hence they badly need reputation management to tide over this crisis.
In the post-corona virus era, for businesses it will be a much different world. There will be higher demands for transparency and it will potentially get nastier than what we’re already seeing.
Unlike the previous epidemics, today the technological advancement, especially in the IT and ITES industries, has come to the aid by bridging the human relationship gap that the corona virus has created.
Opportunities for Health Sector
Take for example, in the healthcare sector, the telecommunication and information technology that provides clinical health care from a distance is seeing an upswing. The global telemedicine market is anticipated to flourish at a CAGR of 14.8% over the forecast period i.e. 2017-2024. Further, the market of telemedicine was valued at USD 20.54 billion in 2016 and is projected to garner USD 61.99 billion by the end of 2024. Factor such as, rising emergency medical incidents and ageing world population is anticipated to drive the growth of the global telemedicine market over the forecast period.
Further, telemedicine has been used to overcome distance barriers and to improve access to medical services that would often not be consistently available in distant rural communities. Apart from this, telemedicine is used to save lives in critical care and emergency situations.
Factor such as, increase in population and improving access to healthcare in some of the major countries such as India, China, Japan is anticipated to drive the growth of the telemedicine in Asia Pacific during the forecast period.
Based on type, telemedicine market is segmented into, telehospitals / teleclinics, tele-home and m-health (mobile health), out of which, telehospitals / teleclinics segment are expected to dominate the growth of the global telemedicine market during the forecast period.
Factor such as, increasing technological innovation in the field of medical device and services across the globe are anticipated to intensify the growth of the global telemedicine market during the forecast period. In addition, rising geriatric population coupled with rising prevalence of chronic diseases is estimated to positively drive the growth of the telemedicine market over the forecast period.
In fact, in a recent Cisco global survey of healthcare executives, it was found 90% had already begun developing or implementing a telemedicine program into their organizations. Even healthcare providers in smaller, independent practices are starting to adopt telehealth to compete with local retail clinics and stop losing their patients. Interestingly, 74% of patients prefer easy access to healthcare services over in-person interactions with providers.
Impact on Education
COVID-19 is a pandemic that illustrates how globally interconnected we are – there is no longer such a thing as isolated issues and actions.
Not since World War II have so many countries around the world seen schools and educational institutions go into lockdown at around the same time and for the same reason. While we know that the impact of this virus will be far-reaching, what might it mean in the longer term for education?
For a while now, educators around the world have been talking about the need to rethink how we educate future generations. This might just be the disruption that the sector needed to get us all to rethink how we educate, and question what we need to teach and what we are preparing our students for. So, as educators grapple with the new ways of communicating with students away from classrooms and lecture theatres, it is a good time to reflect on how this disruptive crisis can help define what learning should look like for the future generations
In this ever-changing global environment, young people require resilience and adaptability – skills that are proving to be essential to navigate effectively through this pandemic. Looking into the future, some of the most important skills that employers will be looking for will be creativity, communication and collaboration, alongside empathy and emotional intelligence; and being able to work across demographic lines of differences to harness the power of the collective through effective teamwork.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in educational institutions across the world being compelled to suddenly harness and utilize the suite of available technological tools to create content for remote learning for students in all sectors. Educators across the world are experiencing new possibilities to do things differently and with greater flexibility resulting in potential benefits in accessibility to education for students across the world. These are new modes of instruction that have previously been largely untapped particularly in the kindergarten to high school.
For the record, according to the latest figures released by UNESCO, some 1.3 billion learners around the world were not able to attend school or university as of March 23, 2020.
Implications on Church’s Pastoral Activities
During the COVID-19 crisis, the church continues to serve the spiritual and social needs of people afflicted by the pandemic which is gripping the world, and its key role was highlighted by the World Health Organization (WHO). On 31 March a panel of experienced church leaders and medical experts went on air to address the global challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic from a medical, moral, and spiritual perspective.
Ever since the government announced social distancing lockdown, churches have cancelled all liturgical activities. However, the Catholic Church, in particular, has quickly jumped onto the bandwagon of making its liturgies, digital, with numerous parishes and individual priests’ almost overnight setting up a livestream so parishioners still have access to the virtual Mass. Church dioceses are live-streaming and uploading Mass on different social and online platforms. Church believes that technology is, in fact, also a blessing from God and they are using it to reach out to its members with prayers.
What is the way forward for the church? With no attendance and dwindling offerings and financial contributions, how will the church survive the vagaries of this epidemic and run its vast network of institutions and organisations? One benefit that’s come out of technological adoption is that the neighbourhood parishners are no more the only audience, the live steaming and uploading of Mass content is now for the global audience. The whole world is a global village!
With almost no attendance, it’s not only the Church, but also the retreat centres, worship gatherings, conference and convention events are all planning to ride the digital wave. The community leaders too are organizing digital hangouts or other group events for young people, so as to keep and take care of the flock.
We are in the midst of a profound social and economic transformation that has been catalysed by breath-taking advances in automation and artificial intelligence, and unprecedented access to data and computation. The impact of these technologies pervades nearly every sector of our economy, including the church.
As we move towards the Holy Week, can the Church and its institutions resurrect themselves from the COVID-19 ashes?
The coronavirus has as unexpectedly provided a stimulus the way the church conducts its ministry in the coming days.
Well, as for me, I believe that Church after having faced innumerable epidemics, plagues, threats, scandals and what not, the church has seen itself grow from strength to strength since 2000 years back, and my take is that it will continue to grow and adapt itself to the new changing world order. The bedrock of the church has been built on the firm foundation of faith and it can weather any storm that’s headed its way!