Tomorrow’s healthcare will need courage and collaboration

The second day of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012 started with an extraordinary private session of our Healthcare Community leaders discussing the transformation of the global healthcare landscape and the urgency for the emergence of new models for addressing gaps in the health “ecosystem”.

Participants highlighted: the need for integration across the whole health spectrum (from prevention, early detection, diagnostic, treatment and care); the importance of focusing on health outcomes broadly, as opposed to individual services and products; the need to measure and report results; and the importance of converging economic and health perspectives in a common agenda.

From today’s discussions, it was clear that a renewed spirit of collaboration around health and a vision of integrated delivery of care will emerge in the next year. There was also a strong alignment across the diversity of partners in the room on the importance of committing to “preventing the preventable”. This is a courageous commitment to propose. It is evident that with the right prevention efforts, and the consequent decrease in disease, existing resources can be redeployed to provide better care, efficient and innovative treatment, and effective disease management. This will undoubtedly bring more value individually and collectively to businesses, patients and populations in general.

All of this clearly indicates we are on the verge on a new era in the health space. The private sector will be critical to driving and achieving a sustainable transformation, but the impact will only attain its full potential if supported through collaboration across stakeholders and sectors. History has shown – and the present state of the world demands – that fiscal and financial crisis can catalyse positive reforms in healthcare.

Joint efforts across the board of health sub-sectors, but most importantly beyond the health arena, will certainly catalyse the needed transformation, and allow room for the implementation of a new healthcare delivery architecture globally, and the new models needed to continue to care for populations’ health even in times of crisis.

Technology will be a fantastic tool to revolutionize health and care. No matter what new systems for healthcare delivery are implemented, they will be for a large part technology-enabled. Similar to what has happened in other sectors, technology offers the possibility of addressing at the same time access, quality and cost.

What I heard today gives me confidence that the needed transformation of the global health landscape will emerge. We have three other important sessions tomorrow to make further progress and prepare concrete next steps.

À demain,

Olivier Raynaud, Senior Director, Head of Global Health and Healthcare Industries.

Pictured: A nurse handles quadruplets in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province. REUTERS/Roni Bintang.