Royal Philips has released the first chapter of the 2018 Future Health Index (FHI).

The report assesses readiness of countries to rise to today's pressing healthcare challenges, with a special emphasis on assessing connected care/digital technologies able to deliver more personal, integrated treatments efficiently and cost-effectively, according to Philips.

“Faced with alarming demographic trends, increasing incidence of multiple chronic diseases and unsustainable cost explosion, healthcare stakeholders are in agreement that our global health systems are under extreme pressure.” the report states, noting that, “this is a crisis situation exacerbated by fundamental access constraints and prevailing unhealthy lifestyles in developing and industrialized countries.”

FHI 2018 looked at data across 16 countries, housing half the global population, and introduced the Value Measure, which shows value delivered by healthcare systems in different countries and will act as a benchmark to assess systems going forward.

The indicator is based on three criteria: access (how universal and affordable), satisfaction of both providers and consumers, and efficiency (outcomes versus costs).

“Global experts agree on the need to move away from a volume-based measure of healthcare to a value-based one,” Jan Kimpen, chief medical officer for Philips said in a statement. “Devising a meaningful Value Measure, including access to care next to patient experience and efficiency, is an important step in helping countries to measure their readiness to address healthcare challenges.”

A key finding of the index is that those places with a high VM also have a high level of connectivity, which the report stated “can accelerate countries along the path to value-based healthcare.”

Moreover, although richer countries tend to have higher development of and ability to deliver value-based care, the relationship is not absolute.

“Varying pockets of excellence and system shortfalls mean different countries may approach this journey in any number of ways,” said the report.

One implication of this latter finding is that developing “pockets of excellence" could provide speedier ways forward for a country.

The data point out that “certain areas of excellence – such as China in consumer wearables – could act as examples for the adoption of technology that will drive better value and blaze a trail for others to follow.”

Additionally, the data suggest that policy has a big role to play in forcing change. Countries with high connectivity for care – like Singapore, Sweden and the Netherlands – had “set clear national goals for the digital and/or remote delivery of healthcare services,” the report noted.

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