The first steps towards digital healthcare in Southeast Europe

Digital health technologies have the potential to play a transformative role in dealing with the key healthcare challenges of both today and tomorrow.

The future of healthcare is critical for humanity. Over the next few decades, healthcare is going to face several major challenges which need to be understood and closely monitored, from an ageing population to the integration of new technologies.

Innovative solutions, stakeholder collaboration, and a focus on patient-centered, value-based care will be fundamental to ensuring the sustainability and effectiveness of healthcare systems in the decades that lie ahead in order to deal with these challenges.

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Innovative solutions, stakeholder collaboration, and a focus on patient-centered, value-based care will be fundamental to ensuring the sustainability and effectiveness of healthcare systems in the decades that lie ahead.

The challenges

Firstly, it’s worth looking at the key challenges that we will face. Leading these is the globe’s ageing population. It is expected that by 2050, the world population above the age of 65 will double. This will raise demands on healthcare for age-related conditions and diseases. The prevalence of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer will also increase, requiring new prevention strategies, early detection, and long-term management.

Healthcare costs are bound to continue rising faster than the growth of the economy in most countries. The governments and the payers will have to find ways to contain the costs and simultaneously ensure quality of care.

Access to healthcare must also be equitable. Ensuring such access, particularly for the underserved and the marginalised, will be of critical importance. Bridging the gap in the social determinants of health and reducing disparities in outcomes will be a key priority.

Meanwhile, rapid advances in technologies like AI, robotics, and genomics are going to change healthcare, but integrating them into existing systems will also pose a challenge.

The role of digital healthcare

Digital health technologies have the potential to play a transformative role in dealing with these key healthcare challenges, through an improvement in access, efficiency enhancement, patient empowerment, and driving better clinical and economic outcomes.

Digitiaation in healthcare, if accelerated, would be able to provide better outcomes and improve services. Efficiency and cost reduction, with patients put at the heart of the system, may be accomplished with increased quality in medical care and delivery of services.

It is not, however, easy to move from traditional ways of treatment to more digital access in some parts of the world. Several factors are involved. First, healthcare workers and the public will need to be educated about the advantage of utilizing digital health technologies. We must shift our mindset such that the people are actively seeking medical care to avoid the occurrence of the disease using the digital tools for early detection and monitoring. By promoting a culture of preventive care, digital health solutions can be better integrated into healthcare systems for better overall health.

The education system, including academic institutions, needs to update its curricula by providing courses elaborating on the importance of health and technology and how we can synergise this role. Providing new education and innovative approaches that future leaders in healthcare can deal with and digitalise the system, starting from their community and beyond, is a positive step towards digital healthcare.

Secondly, we need to build bridges between the public and private sectors. Private companies provide cutting-edge technology, innovative solutions, and expertise in areas like data analysis and AI. Public agencies bring in regulatory frameworks, infrastructure support, and deep understanding of the unique challenges different communities face.

By combining their strengths, digital health initiatives can be tailored to local needs, ensuring fair access and long-term implementation. This cross-sector teamwork allows for knowledge sharing, pooling resources, and developing best practices for responsibly using digital health tools.

Health as an asset

With health care going digital, protecting personal health data and security for electronic medical records is a significant factor.

Health is an asset that any nation possesses, and by keeping sensitive patient information safe from unauthorized access, breaches, or misuse, it builds trust and drives wider adoption of digital health solutions.

Strong data governance policies, encryption, and strict access controls need to safeguard privacy. Raising awareness among healthcare workers and patients about data privacy and ethical data handling strengthens the foundation.

The implementation and proactive work on these key factors will allow the digitalisation of health to thrive, bringing new norms to treat patients more accurately and on time.

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