Health is, without a doubt, one of the most essential goods for the majority of society; having good health system offers a protection that is of enormous importance in the development of public policies. The consequences of a well-functioning health system go beyond health benefits, since it increases the options for competitiveness, as it turns health investment into a profitable investment with multiple returns for society as a whole. Only in Spain, around 100,000 million euros per year are invested in public and private health, especially on pharmacological advances, new diagnostic or management technologies, and the application of artificial intelligence for medicine.
Challenges and opportunities for transformation
Nowadays, this proper working model is presenting numerous challenges, which in turn implies a wide field of opportunities for the development of innovation and project transformation.
Firstly, the need to update the organization of health services and their relationship with professionals and patients opens a wide range of options for collaboration between public and private sectors. Here, the Next Generation funds are turning out to be a productive investment that gradually are becoming to be visible in the calls runed out, as well as those that will continue to be presented in the immediate future.
Secondly, to ensure equity and quality, through the promotion of public figures based on universal public insurance criteria. In Spain, almost 4 decades after the promulgation of the Ley General de Sanidad of 1986, the progress of the health indicators has been spectacular, with a significant decrease in inequalities and reaching levels that place us among the most advanced countries.
The latest health barometers of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) and from the health system itself* have been showing a global positive assessment with respects to public health.
Thirdly, the challenge of the population aging which, together with scientific advances in the field of new drugs and new diagnostic technologies, leads to a greater chronicity of the most prevalent pathologies and this requires new care needs, associated with social support as for situations of loss of personal autonomy, whatever the degree. Medicine and healthcare services turn into connected spaces that require coordination and new services.
In fact, the healthcare space appears as an area of enormous potential for the development of initiatives that improve solutions for the problems of an increasingly numerous social sector (the elderly and people in a situation of dependency).
Investment in health in Spain has a growth potential both in terms of our lower level of public investment than border countries (6.6% of GDP in Spain, compared to 9.9% in Germany, 9.3 % France or 8.3% Denmark), as well as in the field of private health, which has shown significant interannual growth in the last 10 years.**
All these elements, both those that have to do with a conjunctural situation and those that have to do with the disruptive changes to which we are paying attention, generates the necessity to renewed and reinforce public policies to make possible a gradual transformation of public health towards the current needs of the population, generating more efficient and effective contexts.
And in this need to renew and reinforce public policies, a commitment for the development of an intense collaboration strategy with all the business sector is essential.
The path is laid out for public health in the recommendations approved by the Comisión de Reconstrucción of the Congreso de los Diputados, which in June 2021 defined the strategic lines with a broad consensus of the parliamentary groups.
And the fact is that the health sector and the companies that work and interact with it have in front of them a path with great potential to develop transformative projects that require the maximum possible quality and knowledge of the social, political and economic context.
*https://www.sanidad.gob.es/estadEstudios/estadisticas/BarometroSanitario/home_BS.htm
**https://www.sanidad.gob.es/estadEstudios/sanidadDatos/tablas/tabla30_1.htm
José Martínez Olmos Exsecretario General de Sanidad y Senior Advisor de LLYC
