How Can We Leverage Technology to Bridge the Global Healthcare Divide?

I am just back from the 2016 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, which I attended as part of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs. It was an amazing and overwhelming experience, and I came away more convinced than ever that we must focus innovation on the billions of people that advanced technology will never reach by market forces alone.

Rebooting healthcare at Davos

This year, the focus of the World Economic Forum was the Fourth Industrial Revolution and how the technology revolution is changing all aspects of our world. The effects are particularly profound in healthcare. I had the opportunity to discuss these changes in a session titled “Rebooting Healthcare” with Seth F. Berkley, chief executive officer of the GAVI Alliance; Jonathan Adiri, founder and chief executive officer of Healthy.io; and Elizabeth O’Day, founder and chief executive officer of Olaris Therapeutics. Mr. Adiri shared how Healthy.io is using mobile phones as medical imaging devices, and Ms. O’Day discussed how Olaris is developing precision medicines. These organizations are achieving remarkable results, and their contributions come at a critical moment for global health.

A 45x divide

According to 2013 data from the World Health Organization, average healthcare expenditure across all 54 member countries in Africa comes to about 200 dollars per person per year. By comparison, the United States spends roughly 9,000 dollars per person per year. This 45x difference in spending means that, for a vast portion of the world’s population, we need to rethink our approach to healthcare. Many advanced technologies are simply too expensive to alleviate the health crisis for the billions for whom high-tech healthcare is out of reach. If we accept that this divide cannot be bridged with technology designed for a 9,000-dollar-a-year healthcare consumer, then we must find ways for technology to provide vastly lower-cost solutions to vastly more people.

From healthcare to health promotion

One such solution is to use technology to shift our focus from healthcare to health promotion. We need to focus not only on precision healthcare but also on precision health: inexpensive solutions that automate health services and help foster ecosystems where communities can create their own. We saw the power of this approach during the Ebola epidemic. Rather than an expensive blockbuster drug or vaccine, rapid community mobilization facilitated by technology helped quell the outbreak. Simple mobile applications helped by giving communities information on preventative measures, including safe burials and how to conduct contact tracing. We must look for opportunities to replicate this success, using low-cost technology to ensure communities continue to have the preventative information that lets them keep themselves safe.

The economics of prevention

Beyond better health outcomes, this shift from high-cost treatment to low-cost health promotion has serious economic implications. At a macro level, malaria has been estimated to cost Africa more than 12 billion dollars every year in lost GDP, roughly 1% of GDP, even though it could be controlled for a fraction of that sum. At an individual level, treating a child with malaria can cost the equivalent of half a month’s average salary in Sierra Leone. Technology can help alleviate these costs by improving access to low-cost preventative measures such as bed nets.

It was inspiring to learn about the precision technology in development at Davos, but I left more convinced than ever that we must also direct innovation toward the people these technologies will not reach. According to one BCG report, non-communicable diseases between now and 2030 are expected to cost five times the amount lost during the 2008 financial crisis. If we can collectively shift the market and the ecosystem to focus on health, not just healthcare, we can bring the creativity and innovation engine that knows no bounds to every person.