PricewaterhouseCoopers Calls on Healthcare Organisations and Governments to Look Beyond Their Own Borders for Solutions
New Delhi, 25 April 2006 – Faced with rising costs, diminished resources and growing demands, health systems around the world are under siege and many will be unsustainable within 15 years unless fundamental change occurs. The crisis is prompting healthcare organizations and policymakers to seek urgent solutions in unlikely places – outside their own borders. In a groundbreaking report released today, PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute identifies best practices and unveils the result of surveys and interviews with 700 health leaders in 27 countries.
The report, called HealthCast 2020: Creating a Sustainable Future, finds a convergence of trends and solutions in the global healthcare market, including the way healthcare is funded. Countries are moving toward greater shared financial responsibility among the government, the private industry and consumers, even in historically taxpayer- and employer-funded systems. The report also found that consumerism, the use of information technology, incentive realignment and new reimbursement models such as pay-for-performance are soaring globally as nations seek to reduce healthcare costs and improve access, safety and quality for their citizens.
“Everyone we spoke with, in every country, told us they are afraid their current health system was not built to last,” said Jim Henry, global leader for Healthcare, PricewaterhouseCoopers. “Most countries have some aspects of their health system that are working, but no one country has the magic bullet. We need to learn the lessons of other countries and sectors, and build on the best ideas. It will be up to governments, working together with private industry and consumers who not only have a bigger financial stake but also a greater responsibility in their healthcare”, he added.
“India represents an interesting case study in the global healthcare market as we are stuck with some issues which HealthCast 2020 refers to as fundamental”, says Rajarshi Sengupta, executive director and leader of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ healthcare practice in India. He adds, “On the one hand a public health delivery mechanism and a public health infrastructure that can be majorly enhanced; a divide between urban and rural India where the former is increasingly having to deal with lifestyle related diseases and the latter is still in urgent need for even the most basic public health services; lack of customized and focused healthcare financing mechanisms; absence of quality of care and safety standardization; and misaligned incentives structures are making our healthcare scenario seem bleak. On the other hand, a large pool of the best trained medical practitioners, healthcare specialists, and scientists; world class hospitals and R&D facilities in the public and private sectors; renowned R&D facilities; exports of trained and skilled technicians, care providers and knowledge workers; increasing, albeit at a slow rate, use of our immense IT prowess to help address these challenges are emerging as some of the solution drivers.”
Low levels of per capita spending on healthcare, poor health insurance coverage which is concentrated around the urban pockets of the country and the fact that only 17% of the total spending in healthcare is borne by the state implies that a significant chunk of the Indian population is forced to incur the burden of paying for healthcare services out of their own pockets. While the impact of the latter varies for the different segments of society, nevertheless the impacts are significant across almost all sections of the society. The poor and underserved who are even more susceptible to diseases, are pushed further down the poverty spiral in having to deal with the problems.
One of the main catalysts of sustainability will be the consumers themselves. Says Rajarshi, “Consumers will have to have a far bigger say in how healthcare is planned, delivered, managed and received. And to meet the consumers’ needs whilst creating sustainability in the sector, the players in the sector will have to adopt a multi-pronged strategy which would include defining the moral and social responsibilities of the state and backing these responsibilities with increased, and perhaps, re-aligned state spending for the provision of basic healthcare; leveraging IT as a strategic resource to develop a digital backbone for the sector; developing quality of care and safety standards for the sector; exploring innovative mechanisms to finance the sector; strategic resource deployment with realistic incentives alignment; and leveraging adaptable institutional structures and service delivery roles.”
The call for action is too multidimensional and too complex for any one player in the sector, or even for the country as a whole, to answer on its own. No one country has all the solutions. But every country has a lesson to offer. Thus, convergence of thought and action in the healthcare sector appears to be the key to ushering in sustainability of the sector itself. These issues are explored in greater detail in HealthCast 2020: Creating a Sustainable Future.
About the PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute:
PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institute provides new intelligence, perspective and analysis on trends affecting all health-related industries, including healthcare providers, pharmaceuticals, health and life sciences and payers. The Institute is part of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ larger initiative for the health-related industries that brings together expertise and allows collaboration across all sectors in the health continuum.
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