Towards a Cost-effective Healthcare

When it comes to the rest of the economies, the healthcare sector has grown exponentially. Reports suggest that the landscape grew by 818 percent during 1960-2010 while when it comes to the gross domestic product, it increased by 168 percent with a 16 percent increase in the wages. This has also given rise to the healthcare spend incurred in the US that has gone up by 18 percent of GDP, which according to experts is in a very high proportion. The entire world, not just the U.S., sees this growth in the healthcare space. The question that arises is—how can the healthcare sector be spared from the significant cost increase?

The answer is digitization. As digitization is all set to revolutionize the healthcare industry, it has the potential to reverse the ever-increasing costs and also have a positive impact on the industry in terms of bringing in innovations. But the predicament here is that the healthcare space is far behind the curve of digitization.

According to experts, the weight of the healthcare industry would be shifted significantly by the disruptive and innovative technology in the near future. There are two prominent factors today that holds back the digitization of the healthcare sector. The first one is that people don’t really trust the novel technologies existing in the space and secondly, the existing rules and regulations of the healthcare system are not quick in order to accommodate the new technology. The only way to reduce the costs is that while novel technology improves the diagnosis and medical treatment of the existing diseases, technological innovation must be enhanced which will lead the way towards cost-effective healthcare.