It took a global pandemic for health systems to pivot and adapt, making at least 10 years of progress in the span of months and putting healthcare at the heart of the global agenda.
The speed with which healthcare has transformed in the past years is truly incredible, with the industry becoming more interconnected than ever before. From patient twinning and precision therapy to the adoption of data and AI, patient centred breakthroughs have opened up new pathways in clinical decision-making and treatment. Healthcare has also been the central focus of the global economy, driving significant change based on the pillars of security and social justice.
Despite these rapid changes, however, every two seconds, someone aged between 30 and 70 dies prematurely from heart diseases, respiratory failure, diabetes, or cancer. And billions of people live in fragile settings that present a significant challenge to health due to severely limited access to basic health services. Whether it’s the lack of adequate clinics, appointment availability, or deeper infrastructural malaise, patient care access faces a whole gamut of challenges today.
Most critical task in healthcare
With at least 50 percent of the world’s population having no access to affordable, and timely healthcare services, forging a world where people are able to receive the right care in the right setting at the right time, is one of the most critical tasks facing the international community today.
Siemens Healthineers has been at the forefront of deploying inclusive and sustainable breakthroughs to improve access to healthcare – with solutions helping physicians and healthcare providers increase access for patients and address challenges linked to affordability, availability, and acceptability.
In some cases, this has led to major policy changes and new international frameworks – for example, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights now includes the right to “timely access to affordable, preventive and curative healthcare of good quality”. But overall, the gaps between when and where healthcare can be accessed is rapidly widening.
In addition, a surging global population has mounted unprecedented pressure on healthcare systems. The World Economic Forum estimates that 800 million people spend at least 10 percent of their household budgets on health expenses, sending
100 million of those people into extreme poverty. This can create a dangerous and costly healthcare cycle where late diagnosis and therapy lead to ineffective outcomes and amplifies the economic and social fallout.
Improving access to healthcare is also one of the pillars of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely SDG 3 on good health and well-being, and SDG 17 on partnerships for common sustainability goals, and acts as the gateway to economic and social opportunities in underserved societies.
The urgent need, therefore, is to forge a collaborative approach, and MedTech pioneers must play a leading role here. That’s the reason Siemens Healthineers has been at the forefront of deploying inclusive and sustainable breakthroughs to improve access to healthcare – with solutions helping physicians and healthcare providers increase access for patients and address challenges linked to affordability, availability, and acceptability.
Successful case studies in Middle East and Africa
In the Middle East and Africa, this is demonstrated by a multitude of strategic partnerships. In Riyadh, Siemens Healthineers set up a partnership in 2021 with the Prince Sultan Cardiac Center that provides comprehensive cardiovascular healthcare services to Saudi armed forces personnel, for remote care. Facing a lack of patient engagement, the Cardiac Center teamed up with Siemens Healthineers to set up a telehealth service that resulted in better connectivity for patients. In Oman, the company helped set up the Oman International Hospital in partnership with Idealmed Global Healthcare Service to improve patient access through hi-tech laboratory solutions.
Breakthroughs in precision medicine have also brought in new opportunities. Personalized medicine and treatment start with a highly specific diagnosis – and Siemens Healthineers has been able to achieve this by improving diagnostic accuracy, reducing unwarranted variations, and advancing therapy outcomes.
The results of such efforts are visible in continents like Africa, where cancer mortality rates are higher than the global average due to a lack of radiotherapy access and skilled professionals. The Access to Care Cape Town radiotherapy training program facilitated by Siemens Healthineers, was set up to address this growing need and host participants in 14 African countries. In Ethiopia, Siemens Healthineers collaborated with the German government to support the Ministry of Health in its screening of COVID-19 patients.
Through Varian, a Siemens Healthineers company, which is a founding partner of the Global Access to Cancer Care Foundation (GACCF), Siemens Healthineers also partners with clinicians and universities to provide critical technology and training in countries that are struggling with 80 percent of the world’s cancer burden and only 5 percent of the resources needed to control it. GACCF is currently training more than 280 people on the ground and over 600 digitally in countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Ghana.
For Siemens Healthineers, such projects are part of the company’s strategic plan to increase patient touchpoints in underserved countries by more than 75 percent to 260 million in 2030. In addition, training local talent may be one of the most powerful tools to improve access to care. It allows an immediate improvement to the quality of care provided to patients and in the mid to long term, it increases local knowledge base and reduces the need for treatment abroad.
Hand in hand, we can dramatically improve global access to healthcare for all and translate the UN SDGs into meaningful reality. It’s a win-win scenario for the communities that we serve, but this journey will succeed only if all stakeholders work together with the commitment and urgency that it deserves.
