Faces of Digital Health
Norway: The “pilot illness” – easy to do hospital pilot projects, difficult to get larger deployments
Telemedicine is becoming an archaic term in 2023. It is also too broad. We now have at-home hospitals, virtual wards, remote monitoring, and more. Video consultations and online patient portals saw a spike during the pandemic. While many encounters have returned to the in-person setting, a lot of development is happening in workforce optimization. This aims to reduce the burden on hospital infrastructure and improve patient outcomes by bringing clinical staff back into patients’ homes, provided they have the necessary conditions, equipment, and support for at-home care.
In this episode, you will hear from Svein Willasen, Co-Founder and CEO of Confrere, the leading telehealth company in Scandinavia (acquired by Daily in 2022). Svein and I discussed the changing landscape of telemedicine provision, expectations from generative AI, how software providers can sell to hospitals in Nordic countries, and more.
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LATAM Ep.4: Improving Primary Care in Mexico
Mexico has 126 million people which is a bit more than half as much as Brazil in South America, or three times as much as Argentina, which we discussed in one of our previous episodes as well.
Mexico has a predominantly public healthcare system, with workforce shortages – only 2.4 doctors per 1000 people, which is heavily below the OECD average. For comparison, the number of doctors per 1000 people in the US is 2.6, but Denmark or Sweden on the other hand, have 4.3 doctors per 1000 people.
Diagnostikare is a healthcare provider which works with employers to provide primary care, preventative care, and mental health services through a digital platform. It is currently used by over 200.000 people in Mexico.
In this episode, Rafael Lopez, CEO of Diagnostikare shared his insights in the digital patient experience in Mexico, what is the infrastructure like on the national level, how much room for digital innovation the country has, and more.
Other episodes about LATAM:
Healthcare Digitalization in South America Ep. 1: How digital is Peru? (Jhonatan Bringas) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/jhonatan-bringas-digital-health-peru-lapsi
Argentina: Great Medical Education System and Turbulent Political Instability (Santiago Troncar)
https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/latam-ep-2-argentina-santiago-troncar-digital-health
LATAM Ep. 3: Improving Cancer Care in South America (Pegasi)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/latam-ep-3-improving-cancer-care-in-south-america-pegasi/id1194284040?i=1000617174703
Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com
Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/
LATAM Ep. 3: Improving Cancer Care in South America (Pegasi)
In the last few episodes, you’ve been able to hear two episodes about digital health in South America. We talked about Peru with Jhonathan Bringas, MD and innovator, CEO of Lapsi Health, we dove into Argentina with Santiago Troncar, CEO and Founder or FutureDocs Latin America, and in this episode, we are looking into Chile and cancer Care in Latin America, with Luis Santiago, CEO of Pegasi. Luis was a guest on the podcast already 2 years ago, and I added the link to that episode in the show notes. PEGASI is a healthcare IT company that pivoted from EMR provision to cancer care with their oncology information system that aims to improve the time it takes to diagnose and treat cancer patients in developing countries.
Luis talked about oncology management in South America, changes in healthcare digitalization in South America after the pandemic.
Other episodes:
Healthcare Digitalization in South America Ep. 1: How digital is Peru? (Jhonatan Bringas) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/jhonatan-bringas-digital-health-peru-lapsi
Argentina: Great Medical Education System and Turbulent Political Instability (Santiago Troncar)
https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/latam-ep-2-argentina-santiago-troncar-digital-health
Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com
Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/
Finland: Room for Improvement in Public-Private Partnerships
In this episode, we’re diving in the Finish ecosysyem. What makes Finland repeatedly achieve the rank of the happiest country globally? In this episode, you will hear from Päivi Sillanaukee, Special Envoy for Health and Wellbeing at the Ministry for Social Affairs and Health. Until recently, Paivi was Ambassador for Health at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Paivi has a strong presence in the international community, She is the co-chair of the Alliance for Health Security Cooperation (AHSC), a member of the Steering Group of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), and a member of Health Advisory Board of the UN Technology Innovation Lab (UNTIL) Finland.
We discussed the ecosystem in Finland, why should Ministries for foreign affairs care about healthcare, and where does Finland have room for improvement in healthcare digitalization.
Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com
Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/
Europe: How are Slovenia, Germany and the Netherlands Envisioning Future Healthcare Digitalization?
If it seems that the world is moving faster and faster with the rapid evolution of AI and other technologies, the digitalization of healthcare infrastructure is not changing with that speed. However, countries across Europe are ambitiously pursuing digitalization efforts.
On top of that, under the European Health Data Space legal framework, countries in the European Union are building the MyHealth @EU infrastructure which aims to enable cross-border health information accessibility and services.
In this episode, you will get an insight in the state of healthcare and digitalization in Germany, the Netherlands, and Slovenia. All three countries have published their new digitalization strategies in the last 6 months. Slovenia plans to gradually expand the annual budget for eHealth from 6 million EUR to 80 million. Hospitals in Germany received 4,3 billion EUR for digitalization projects and need to demonstrate by 2024, that funded projects have been implemented and are making an impact. The Netherlands passed a new electronic Data exchange in healthcare law in April and plans on spending 1,4 billion for healthcare digitalization by 2026.
The challenge with healthcare digitalization and reforms are complex, due to various data privacy concerns, the digital divide, integration issues among different healthcare information systems, different complexities of healthcare systems’ design, and legal constraints from the past, that now need to be changed.
You will hear more in this discussion with the representatives of healthcare ministries in Slovenia, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Speakers:
- Alenka Kolar, Acting Director-General Directorate for Digitalisation in Healthcare at the Ministry of Health Slovenia
- Sebastian Zilch, Head of e-Health, Gematik & Telematics Infrastructure at the German Federal Ministry of Health
- Bianca Rowenhorst, CIO Ministry of Health, Welfare, and Sports in the Netherlands
LATAM Ep.2: Argentina: Great Medical Education System and Turbulent Political Instability
South America is a large market, with great potential from the language perspective, since Spanish is the official language in most countries, except for Brazil. But what are the specifics of the region?
In this episode Santiago Troncar, the founder of Future Docs Latin America, shares his insights on healthcare digitalization in Argentina. He discusses the strengths and challenges of the healthcare system, including the high level of human and software resources, but also the economic crisis and disparities across the country. Santiago highlights the importance of electronic health records and patient empowerment and shares an example of innovative AI-powered breast cancer screening technology.
Past episode in LATAM Series: Healthcare digitalization in South America Ep. 1: How digital is Peru? (Jhonatan Bringas) https://www.facesofdigitalhealth.com/blog/jhonatan-bringas-digital-health-peru-lapsi
Website: www.facesofdigitalhealth.com
Newsletter: https://fodh.substack.com/
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