The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed systemic weaknesses and technological strengths and could speed the kind of progress and change needed for better quality, more accessible and more affordable care. Already, in both the healthcare and IT sectors, leaders and first movers have emerged providing solutions for the medical and social issues the crisis has brought to the fore.
Our white paper Healthcare in the post-pandemic world looks through key structural issues in the US healthcare system and solutions that will help build back a better and more resilient healthcare ecosystem.
Some observations:
- Medical technology companies have mobilised to set up critical infrastructures for diagnostic testing
- Biotech companies have made swift advances in therapeutics and vaccines to treat and prevent the viral infection
- Healthcare IT companies have rapidly scaled up virtual health platforms to enable the accelerated adoption of telehealth so that patients and clinicians can interact while observing social distancing rules.
- Beyond the healthcare sector, IT companies have improved the efficiency of contact tracing and offer the promise of early, pre-emptive detection of pandemics through AI algorithms.
The response to the pandemic is accelerating the transition to value-based rather than episode-based reimbursement systems. These should create incentives
- To close gaps in care, improve care coordination, reduce administrative waste, avoid overtreatment and prevent abuse and fraud
- To lower the cost of care
- To invest in improving the social determinants of health that include public education and health policies, the effects of social class, gender, ethnicity and income.
Healthcare in the post-pandemic world highlights the innovative, often disruptive, solutions that will help solve the inefficiencies and inequities that have been exposed.
