Tech Roundup, Jan. 31, 2020 | Brazil’s bet to expand healthcare

You’re reading The Brazilian Report‘s weekly tech roundup, a digest of the most important news in technology and innovation in Brazil. This week’s topics: Should the government own healthcare data on the entire population? The booming digital payments market. Brazil’s complex industry loses steam. And more.

Tech is Brazil’s bet to expand healthcare. But is it too Orwellian?

On January 30, the Brazilian government launched its Healthcare 4.0 initiative, seeking to integrate healthcare data from Brazilians in order to expand coverage. The idea is to use connected devices—such as smartwatches or cell phone apps—to reach municipalities that currently don’t have direct access to hospitals and care centers, particularly in the Amazon region. The goals are quite bold: “Brazil will be the first country of continental size to have an entirely integrated healthcare system,” forecast Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta.

The Healthcare 4.0 initiative will fund health tech programs and could inject between BRL 4 and 6 billion in federal investments. 

Why it matters. Big data has proven to be an effective weapon to avoid pandemics. A Canadian health monitoring platform sent the first warnings about the coronavirus in December 2019, long before the World Health Organization had notified the public.

Upside. By collecting real-time data on people’s health, the government seeks to plan ahead for preventive medicine programs, provide care in remote areas, perform epidemiological monitoring, expand vaccination coverage, and provide the possibility of telemedicine.

Yes, but … The data would...