Paving the Way to Better Healthcare
How digital transformation and innovative financing can improve patient care
By Eric Obscherning, Patricia Wu, Ryan MacFarlane | Crowell & Moring International
At a Glance:
To create a more sustainable supply chain, a report from NCAPEC, Johnson & Johnson, and UPS recommends that the healthcare sector should:- Prioritize trade and movement of essential personnel
- Accelerate physical and digital connectivity
- Encourage economy-wide task forces for supply chain flexibility
- Support efforts to build capacity among small businesses.As populations grow and age in the APEC region and elsewhere, healthcare delivery must become more efficient and scalable.
Building resilient healthcare supply chains
Why it’s important
Deepening globalization over the past decade has spurred more businesses in APEC economies and around the world to engage in an increasingly complex network of global trade, especially for healthcare products. Today, healthcare supply chains are highly integrated, regulated, and specialized. They follow an intricate choreography of steps from laboratory bench to bedside.
Major disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and shortages of freight capacity had an outsized impact on healthcare supply chains. Micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) were particularly exposed. By learning from these challenges, policymakers and businesses have the opportunity to build more resilient supply chains.
What’s happening in APEC
As a key component of regional economic integration, supply chains have been a topic of discussion in APEC for a decade, but they have come into sharp focus in 2023. In partnership with leading companies like Johnson & Johnson and UPS, the National Center for APEC (NCAPEC) surveyed over 300 healthcare firms across 15 APEC economies to understand the current state of resilience and to recommend strategies to foster resilient healthcare supply chains.
The “State of Healthcare Supply Chains in APEC” report was launched at the Third APEC Senior Officials Meeting (SOM3) in August, recommending that the organization establish trade and movement of essential personnel as key priorities, create APEC-level response guidelines, speed up physical and digital connectivity, encourage economy-wide task forces for supply chain flexibility, and support capacity building for MSMEs.
The report also suggests that healthcare firms measure supply chain resilience, focus on flexibility and diversification, create more visibility, and align with industry best practices. At Johnson & Johnson, for example, “cross-functional teams … are embedding digital, elevating [their] resilience and risk management strategies, and collaborating across a diverse ecosystem,” said Kathy Wengel, Executive Vice President and Chief Technical Operations & Risk Officer.
To help firms implement these recommendations, NCAPEC, Johnson & Johnson, and UPS developed the MSME Supply Chain Resilience Toolkit, which can also help food, consumer technology, and consumer goods industries.
How it’s unique and valuable
Building resilient healthcare supply chains requires trust, communication, and cooperation between and across governments, industry, academia, and the end users. With public-private collaboration and regional integration in its DNA, as the APEC CEO Summit demonstrates, there is perhaps no better forum than APEC to incubate this critical work.
With its wide breadth of topics, APEC can help bring together diverse perspectives and make connections between areas such as digital technology and data, trade facilitation, customs, regulatory harmonization, and others which are necessary for understanding the barriers to and designing the solutions for supply chain resilience.
Enhancing and expanding patient care through digital transformation
Why it’s important
As growing and aging populations in the APEC region and around the world face new health threats, healthcare delivery must continue to become more efficient, scalable, and patient- centric. Such improvements are only possible through the harnessing of digital technology, effective use of data, and an enabling policy and regulatory environment.
Incredible digital health innovations are already here, ushered in by the proliferation of mobile devices and high-speed Internet on one hand, and accelerated by the acute disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic and recent advancements in artificial intelligence on the other hand. Millions of individuals, healthcare providers, healthcare firms and other stakeholders are developing and using telemedicine, wearables, electronic health records, digital therapeutics, and AI-driven diagnostics and drug development. Policymakers and businesses are working together to advance policy and regulatory frameworks, standards, and best practices.
What’s happening in APEC
The APEC Health Working Group (HWG) convened the Public-Private Roundtable on Telehealth Solutions and Digital Health Integration. Stakeholders from across sectors and economies discussed how “regulatory sandboxes” could create a safe space to test innovative approaches to digital health in a controlled environment; how telemedicine could expand patient access, especially for rural communities; and how leading healthcare companies like Pfizer are developing digital therapeutics while using technology and data to allow “patients, their caregivers, and healthcare providers to ‘sync’ in real time to meaningfully improve experiences and outcomes,” said Lidia Fonseca, chief digital and technology officer.
At the 13th APEC High-Level Meeting on Health & the Economy in Seattle this August, health ministers and senior health officials noted how the acceleration of the digital economy in the health sector, and the rapid growth in digital health applications, telehealth services, and digital technologies have the potential to increase health system resilience and access. The importance of health data privacy and security was another topic of discussion.
These events build upon several years of efforts on digital health by the APEC HWG. The report, “Empowering Telehealth Solutions in APEC: Study on the Policy Landscape for Telehealth in the APEC Region,” analyzed the existing policy and regulatory landscape that supports telehealth delivery, while highlighting best practices that can be adopted and replicated throughout the region. In May, the APEC HWG updated its “Summary Report of APEC Economies’ Digital Policy Measures to Combat Covid-19.”
How it’s unique and valuable
Enhancing and expanding patient care through digital transformation is not for the healthcare sector alone. It’s a collaborative pursuit which requires the participation of diverse stakeholders — from tech innovators to healthcare providers, from policymakers to patients.
Consider the importance of interoperable electronic health records across APEC , which enhances patient care within borders but also ensures that individuals receive seamless care when they travel or relocate. This challenge isn’t just technological — it’s also regulatory, cultural, and logistical.
Investing in equitable and sustainable access to health for women
Why it’s important
A society that prioritizes the health and well-being of women is investing in its own economic growth and prosperity. Women play a critical role in every facet of society, yet they continue to face barriers to quality healthcare. When women are healthy, they can pursue educational opportunities, join the workforce, start businesses, and contribute significantly to community development and economic resilience.
What’s happening in APEC
Organon, the Ministry of Public Health of Thailand, and other stakeholders are continuing to advance the APEC Smart Families project under the APEC HWG. In the first phase of the project from August 2022 to June 2023, experts developed holistic policy options related to fertility planning for individuals and families who want to have children, and the avoidance of unintended pregnancies to enable women’s economic empowerment. Organon and partners in APEC are also helping highlight what Geralyn Ritter, Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs, Sustainability, and ESG, says are “the disproportionate impacts of climate change on women’s health.”
In addition, Merck & Co., the United States National Cancer Institute, and other partners in the APEC HWG are continuing to drive progress towards the elimination of cervical cancer, a disease that affects women at an age when they are leading productive lives and contributing
to society and the economy, while attaining leadership positions and caring for family.
How it’s unique and valuable
These multi stakeholder initiatives in APEC that seek to improve access to healthcare for women are prime examples of what differentiates the organization’s work on health more broadly. It is the fundamental recognition that health and the economy are inextricably linked and mutually reinforcing.
Innovative health finance as a tool to build resilient economies
Why it’s important
The growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and aging populations may cause APEC economies to lose between 6 and 8.5 percent of GDP by 2030. Yet many economies continue to underinvest in health, even after the Covid-19 pandemic. There is an urgent need for economies to deploy more financial resources for healthcare.
Innovative finance can help accelerate the participation of private investors in health. Economies can generate additional funds by tapping new funding sources from the public sector, incentivizing the flow of private sector contributions, enhancing the overall efficiency of financial flows, and facilitating more results- oriented expenditure.
What’s happening in APEC
Efforts on innovative health finance in APEC began in 2014 with a landmark study which quantified the potential GDP loss caused by underinvestment in NCDs and healthy aging. In 2017, after APEC Finance Ministers encouraged economies to share best practices and explore innovative and sustainable health financing solutions, APEC convened stakeholders from health and finance ministries, healthcare firms, and other organizations to develop the APEC Checklist of Enablers for Alternative Health Financing. This tool helps economies assess their current policy and regulatory environment for enabling the adoption of alternative financing mechanisms to help maintain and expand healthcare coverage. The tool outlines six principles: political will and government coordination; good governance; private sector engagement; legal and regulatory frameworks; health and financial literacy; and quality data and evidence. In 2018–2019, it was put to use through economy-specific research and engagements in Thailand and Japan.
In 2020, partners in APEC and the Asia-Pacific Financial Forum established a webinar series to provide information, best practices, and case studies to enable APEC economies to deploy innovative and alternative health financing mechanisms, such as impact bonds and blended financing. In September 2022, private sector stakeholders, Malaysia’s Minister of Health, and others met to explore innovative healthcare financing strategies. Most recently, health finance was a major component of the 13th APEC High-Level Meeting on Health & the Economy in Seattle.
How it’s unique and valuable
Perhaps more than any other health issue, the work on innovative health finance may be APEC’s most obvious area of unique value- add. It is a quintessential issue at the center of health and the economy, and successfully depends upon robust and transparent public- private cooperation. This work also highlights how APEC can make valuable contributions not only at the theoretical level through evidence-based studies and expert analysis but also at the practical level with toolkits and blueprints. APEC offers a platform for knowledge exchange and capacity-building, where member economies can learn from each other.
More information on APEC’s health financing work can be found at: www.apec.org/healthfinancing.
For more information on public-private collaboration on health related issues in APEC visit: www.asiapacifichealthcoalition.org.
