Changing landscape
The coronavirus pandemic has put a strain on the global healthcare sector, including workforce, infrastructure, and digitisation. It’s exposing social inequities in health and care and shifting the paradigm on what collaboration across healthcare systems looks like. The pandemic is therefore accelerating change across the system and forcing public and private health institutions to adapt and innovate.
The pandemic has without a doubt brought about widespread foundational shifts, and some positive disrupters. Examples include:
- service users being increasingly involved in healthcare decision-making;
- the rapid adoption of virtual health and other digital innovations;
- increased demand for data analytics in healthcare decision making; and
- unprecedented levels of collaborations between previously disparate parts of the healthcare system.
However, amid these tensions, governments, healthcare providers and other stakeholders around the globe have had to adapt or risk failing to safeguard the public.
In this briefing we look at some global healthcare trends that are driving change in the healthcare sector and some considerations for healthcare leaders to use these trends to shape the debate on navigating the post-pandemic world.
This briefing benefits from contributions across RSM’s global healthcare community, which works with over 3,000 healthcare organisations.
1. Waiting times
One of the most critical measures of the quality of a country's healthcare system is how long patients have to wait to access medical care. But the question of which countries have the shortest wait times is complicated by the different ways that countries measure wait time and the differences in the healthcare systems of various countries.
The Ipsos Global Health Service Monitor ran a survey in 30 countries between 30th August and 3rd September 2021. Key findings include:
- Coronavirus remains the biggest health problem facing people around the world (selected by 70% of people across all 30 countries, only slightly down on the 72% recorded last year).
- Half as many (34%) say that cancer is an important health concern in 2021, down from 37% last year. Meanwhile, mental health sees a 5-point increase to 31%, putting it just 3 points behind global concern about cancer.
- Despite a challenging couple of years for healthcare services, public perceptions are holding up well overall: 53% rate their country’s healthcare services positively, and 51% trust they will receive the best treatment.
- That said, a majority worldwide (56%) say that their country’s healthcare system is overstretched while access to treatment/waiting times is seen to be the main challenge for healthcare services (41%), followed by lack of staff (39%).