About Symposium

The majority of studies and analyses indicate that issues of the contemporary healthcare systems are significant. It is particularly apparent in high-income countries which differ from systems in most of the other countries due to their rapid development. The recently published book titled “Healthcare Systems: Future Predictions for Global Care” describes the changes anticipated to take place by 2030. The analysis covers 152 countries. This and other publications indicate the emerging trends to shape the future landscape of global healthcare.

1. stable development of healthcare systems,
2. new technologies,
3. genomic-led revolution,
4. demographic challenges,
5. changing epidemiology trends,
6. new models of care.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed how unstable the world-wide health security proved to be when confronted with a global threat. The systems were not capable of reacting swiftly enough to the emerging needs nor sufficiently adapting to the new circumstances. Relocating forces and resources to areas most affected by the crisis caused a collapse and negligence in the areas from which the resources were moved.

The pandemic has made us aware that new local and global health challenges might emerge in the future. These challenges may be continuously evolving and therefore the mechanisms put in place to neutralise them also need to be flexible and ensure the right operating dynamics. The healthcare systems have to be balanced so that increased pressure in one area does not cause other areas to collapse or suffer under new burdens.

Prior to the pandemic, problems with finances and quality of care (understood among others as lack of suitable access to health services) were considered some of the biggest issues all healthcare systems struggle with. Pouring more money into the system was viewed as the cure to all of its shortcomings. However, the pandemic revealed that in the case of a system overload, the mechanisms' failure to create the right procedures, personnel shortages, and even insufficient access to health technologies were the main identified issues. Considering all of the above, achieving a balance between good quality care and economic efficiency is becoming increasingly more challenging.
Creating and maintaining a healthcare system is associated with continuous planning, implementing, and assessing the effectiveness of operations in a perspective exceeding the term of individual governments. This is yet another potential weakness, as turbulent times generate the desire to create makeshift solutions, often failing to consider their long-term consequences. Deploying and using new systemic or technological solutions requires stability and time in order to allow for monitoring the longest possible life cycles and trends of the implemented innovations.

This is why the challenges concerning the creation of a balanced healthcare system (both public and private) require not only a financial analysis for the cost management and looking for savings, but also an honest assessment of the added value offered by new solutions and truly improved efficiency. Paradoxically, the key to a stable healthcare system seems to be adapting it to frequent changes and being able to develop individual areas without distorting the balance of the whole system.

Those are the issues we will be covering during the upcoming EBHC Symposium. top