The latest global healthcare survey by Pricewater-houseCoopers has highlighted the threats to sustainability in healthcare systems and identified the best practices that countries can aim to achieve for desired healthcare outcomes.
Titled 'HealthCast 2020: Creating a Sustainable Future', the report called for global convergence in health, with organisations and governments looking beyond their borders.
The threats to sustainability came from rising costs, diminished resources and growing demands, it said. Around 700 health leaders across 27 countries were interviewed for the survey.
"The healthcare spend the world over is estimated to be $2.7 trillion and may go up to $10 trillion by 2020,". India is a very interesting example which has elements of a bit of everything that we found elsewhere in the world. One such thing creating a lot of interest is medical tourism," said Jim Henry, global leader for Healthcare, PriceWaterhouseCoopers.
The survey which interviewed 700 health leaders across 27 countries, found that countries were moving towards greater shared financial responsibility amongst the government, private industry and consumers.
The report also found that prevalence of consumerism, the use of information technology, incentive realignment and new reimbursement models such as pay-for-performance were on the rise as nations seek to reduce costs and improve access to healthcare.
Commenting on the relevance of these models to India, PWC's executive director, Rajarshi Sengupta said, "We have to see the transference possibilities of these global trends for India. Some of these lessons have come from India and some can be adapted here."
Agreeing that there were no policy prescriptions coming out of the report, Sengupta added that it was meant to be "used as a lens (to analyse) by the governments rather than a prescription."
Pointing out to the health paradox in India as a challenge, the report talks of the urban-rural divide witnessing lifestyle related diseases in the former even as the latter is in urgent need of the most basic health services.
On one hand, India has a large pool of quality medical practitioners, scientists and even exports skilled technicians, while the public health mechanism suffers from absence of quality care and safety standardisation.
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