Health spending takes up 10% of the global economy: How can tech help reduce costs and improve lives?
- The increasing healthcare expenses are becoming unsustainable, yet failing to improve life expectancy.
- Technology can provide cost-effective solutions to addressing health challenges.
- Fitness, musculoskeletal treatment and maternal health are areas that show the benefits of digital interventions.
Most observers recognize that increasing healthcare costs are putting immense strain on households, governments, insurers and healthcare providers – and that the money spent isn’t translating into better health outcomes.
In 2021 alone, global spending on health reached a staggering $9.8 trillion, accounting for 10.3% of global GDP. Yet, over the last decade, life expectancy has stagnated in many countries, including the United States (US), which alone spends over $4 trillion annually on health.
We know that change is imperative, yet progress has been slow. The impediments to change include low levels of general awareness about the need and ways to maintain health, concerns of insurers and the public about the high short-term costs and delayed benefits of preventative care, and insufficient incentives for providers to shift their practices.
International organizations are actively stepping up their efforts to focus the global community on the issue. The United Nations has set Sustainable Development Goals for Health, and the World Economic Forum founded the Centre for Health and Healthcare to define and advocate for a path forward. These efforts have supported research and amplified global discussions about the various factors that make health costs balloon: an ageing population; the increased prevalence of chronic conditions (particularly obesity, cardiac disease, cancer, musculoskeletal conditions and mental illness); higher prices for healthcare products; administrative inefficiencies; and health inequity.
With increasing awareness, we must shift the attention of all the stakeholders toward new ways of addressing today’s healthcare challenges – specifically, towards using technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to:
- Engage people in preventative care
- Automate routine processes
- Move healthcare provision to value-based care models
Excellent examples of the effective use of technology to drive sector-wide change are starting to emerge in fitness, musculoskeletal and maternal health. Those applications give us clues on how to design successful digital interventions in the health sector.
Fitness tech
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