Finding real wealth in health industry

The demand to cut costs has brought more healthcare innovations from the supply side to the demand side, said Simon Stevens, president of the global health division at UnitedHealth Group.

China Daily

Stevens added that fundamental healthcare innovations in the next decade will come from outside the healthcare sector, such as technology developments and inter-sector cooperation.

Many Asian countries have tried to coordinate different government departments to deal with healthcare challenges. For example, in the Sultanate of Oman, the government has developed a collaborative mechanism that enables the healthcare sector to work with the education sector and food industry in dealing with the growing obesity rate in children.

The common use of smartphones also provides opportunities from the new technology, such as phone applications to monitor blood pressure, blood sugar and nutrition condition, in addition to data collecting and analysis that can lead to more efficient healthcare solutions based on daily behavior.

Given the huge population in Asia and shortage of medical infrastructure, the latest innovations are especially promising.

"The healthcare environment has changed from five years ago. The changing environment has changed the way technology leaders invest," says John Dineen, president and CEO of GE Healthcare. The company is now investing to improve quality, efficiency and access at the same time.

For example, GE Healthcare developed Vscan, a pocket-sized ultrasound scanner, that helps assist local health workers to reduce the maternal mortality rate in the hinterland of Indonesia where hospitals cannot afford expensive medical equipment.

He says the settings of healthcare have changed transitioning from hospitals to clinics, to home, to the field.

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