Governments should seek more partnerships between the public and private sectors to tackle the challenges of an aging population and an increase in chronically ill patients, a visiting Danish healthcare expert said earlier this week.
Healthcare Denmark senior project manager Anne Mette Bang said Denmark has a well-developed public healthcare system that provides all citizens with a full range of services, from primary and hospital care, to rehabilitation and care for the elderly and disabled.
However, the system has come under pressure due to the increasing elderly population and a rise in the number of chronically ill patients, she said. That trend has forced Denmark to rethink and reinvent how healthcare is being delivered, and new tools have been developed, tested and implemented to secure a continuously high standard of healthcare services, Bang said.
Healthcare Denmark is a national organization that has a mandate to promote Danish healthcare solutions and competencies.
Bang, who has more than 15 years of experience in the field, said that both the pharmaceutical and medical technology sectors have for many years been partners with and supplied Denmark’s healthcare sector.
The electronic healthcare sector is also playing a significant role in the field, both as co-development partners and as suppliers, Bang said.
This collaboration between the private and public sector has spawned beneficial private-public innovation projects that have helped the public sector in its delivery of healthcare and the private sector in developing products that are ready to go to market, she said.
The collaboration also means that “new business models are being developed” as partnerships evolve and that integration between the public and private sectors based on knowledge-sharing is becoming increasingly more common, Bang said.
Wu Ming-ji (吳明機), director-general of the Industrial Development Bureau under the Ministry of Economic Affairs, urged the nation’s healthcare sector to learn from the experiences of Denmark and Japan in offering competitive solutions integrated with Taiwan’s strengths in information technology.
According to estimates by the bureau, the total value of Taiwan’s healthcare services is expected to grow from NT$23 billion (US$754.5 million) last year to NT$26.4 billion this year and NT$65 billion in 2017.
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