En route to cost-effective healthcare

Episode summary

The Head of Data Solutions at Medscheme, Vukosi Sambo, joins us in this episode of the podcast series.

The South African healthcare space has ever-increasing costs and high unaffordability – outplaying inflation and wages year-on-year. Currently only eight million of the 59 million people in South Africa have medical insurance. This puts an immense burden on government to provide for the rest of the uninsured population.

Largely due to COVID-19, the last few months has seen an acceleration in digitisation across all industries. In healthcare, virtual consults have become hugely popular – where people can access doctors and specialists anywhere, any time. Virtual consults have proven to also be a lot cheaper than face-to-face consultations, so from an affordability point of view it’s a step in the right direction says Vukosi.

Gathering data for electronic health records can be extremely empowering for healthcare providers and doctors alike, allowing them to have a good understanding of the history of their patients and how best to disperse treatments that are relevant to them.

The healthcare industry comprises three components: funders such as medical aids, providers and members. Vukosi believes that these three components should always be aligned to ensure a fair and affordable healthcare service for all. Failing that, providers can induce the demand while specialists charge exorbitant fees for procedures. As their rooms are always full, there is no incentive to charge affordable rates. He says that under these circumstances one needs to elevate data and empower consumers by always placing them at the centre of the triangle.

We live in a new world where technology has been a critical advancement. Looking ahead, it is paramount that government understands its role in terms of how it can enable digitisation in a way that will deliver healthcare at a lower cost, while driving the affordability of data and ease of access to it.