"We are not in a situation when we have to just weather the storm. This is a structural crisis that requires structural changes," said IESE Prof. Núria Mas at the opening of the Continuous Education program session that took place on IESE's Barcelona campus this week. The title of the session was, "The Future of the Healthcare Sector: A Better Recipe for Creating Value?"
Solutions must go beyond copayments and tax hikes, she said: "We all have a lot of debt, so passing it on to others is not going to help." Mas examined key issues related to offering quality care to growing populations at an affordable cost.
She noted that in advanced economies, less than 50 percent of patients follow through with treatments prescribed by their doctors. It is fundamental to understand "what works and why," she said, while increasing transparency and information and looking for new ways to involve the patient. In some countries, for example, high levels of health care spending are linked with smoking, bad diet and stress. New models are needed, particularly since many current frameworks are outdated due to changes in the treatments that are most frequently carried out today.
Prof. Alejandro Lago said that any cuts in the healthcare system have to be done "in an intelligent way." Critical to this process will be placing an emphasis on efficiency, the end client and segmentated management. He stressed that a healthcare system cannot be all things to all people, and that certain distinctions have to be made among patients in order to create an efficient system. He discussed various differentiating factors such as complexity of treatment, volume of patients and the severity of illness.
