Investing in health creates economic growth ICT & health

Health care is under pressure all over the world. Health care demand and costs increase every year. Yet the sector has struggled for years with a growing staff shortage as healthcare professionals choose other jobs and the number of medical students declines . Technologies such as digitization, remote care and AI are seen as possible (partial) solutions to keep healthcare accessible and affordable. But the bottom line is that health care budgets are shrinking. More is needed, and different solutions. Prevention, for example, to ensure that people stay healthy for longer.

During his speech HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, Lucien Engelen spoke about the challenges of healthcare and how it is time for healthcare, politics and business to start thinking differently about solving the impending health care crisis. If we continue to look for more staff and resources to provide more care, we will not get there.

Healthcare movement under pressure

Prevention and healthy living is where we need to go. In the Netherlands we have the Prevention Agreement and the Integrated Care Agreement. Plans that should help ensure that health care remains affordable and accessible in the future. However, the budgets that the government had allocated for this purpose are under pressure because of the arrival of the new cabinet.

Too much attention is paid to healthcare costs and the healthcare transition and not to what health – people staying healthy longer – delivers to the economy. According to Engelen, investment in health, personal health, technology and ICT leads to economic growth. After all, people who stay healthy are more productive throughout their working lives. Those who are naturally healthy need less care and therefore health care costs go down. A healthy life means living longer and more working years.

M x H = E

David Bloom from the Harvard School of Public Health says in his publication ‘The Effect of Health on Economic Growth’ that an increase in life expectancy by 1 year can lead to economic growth of 4 percent. “Many countries have an economic policy that aims for 2 percent growth, so if we can achieve 4 percent in terms of health, that’s great,” Engelen said.

According to Engelen, this is the key to a healthy society and an affordable and high-quality health care system, where care is personal and still accessible to everyone. We also need to understand that investing in health saves money. Calculations from Harvard say that every euro invested in health ultimately returns nine times that value at most.

The formula Engelen has devised to reveal this paradigm shift is: M x H = E, or Medicine + Health = Economy. And now it’s time to put this formula into action. Below you can see Lucien Engelen’s speech.

Lucien Engelen is also one of the main speakers at the ICT & health World Conference. There he will share his knowledge, insight and vision about health, technology and the (digital) transformation of healthcare with those present. Request your ticket now and register here.