Key challenges and priorities for healthcare
Although the pandemic helped to highlight positive new approaches to care delivery, it also saw a number of serious and longstanding challenges come to the surface.
Workforce challenges and labour shortages
More and more healthcare workers find themselves struggling with heavy workloads, technological issues, inefficient collaboration and time-consuming admin processes:
Yet as employees contemplate leaving the sector, demand for skilled healthcare practitioners is growing fast:
Freeing up capacity
Healthcare providers are looking to ease the burden on their increasingly stressed workforce. Measures may include reshaping the scope of job requirements, applying techniques that support healthcare professionals in spending more time on the tasks they are trained to do, and allowing more remote work to help improve practitioner’s work/life balance.
The rising cost of care
The global burden on healthcare systems is increasing. On average, Europeans spend between 15 and 19 years in poor health starting from their mid 60s4, while over 50m people in Europe live with more than one chronic disease.5
These situations vary significantly by country and region, placing localised strains on care systems:
Life expectancy has risen by almost double the global average in Africa since 2000.6
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like heart disease and diabetes will increase by 17% globally in the next decade.7
The average length of hospital stays across Europe still remains high. Even in nations such as Germany, which ranked fourth in a recent European comparison, patients spend an average of 9.0 days in hospital – creating significant care costs.8
Yet even as demographic changes and localised trends put pressure on healthcare budgets, wasted costs are at record levels.
It’s estimated that 25% of all healthcare expenditure in the US is wasted, with administrative complexity one of the major causes.2
Boosting efficiencies
Healthcare organisations are leveraging technology to boost efficiencies, reduce delivery costs and lighten the load on health workers – while improving care for patients.