WILL EUROPEAN healthcare systems converge?
The received wisdom is that every country in Europe has a unique healthcare system, and that this will be the case for ever more...
Interestingly, I increasingly hear the opposite. Take the comments of Professor Andreas Knottnerus, a top policymaker in the Netherlands. He calmly says: "I see national systems merging into a single European system in 10-15 years time. There is a strong convergence in the values of European healthcare development. I see Europe as leading in transforming international developments." He points to cross border cooperation, centres of excellence and a growing political consensus (see news story)
Knottnerus is not alone.
Ralph Riber is Chief Executive of Ambea, the 6.6 bn SEK behometh, which owns Carema in Sweden and Mehiläinen in Finland.
He feels that the twin models which dominate Europe - a national health service, as in the UK, Spain and Sweden, and the Bismarckian alternative in France and Germany, where individuals have to self insure - are behaving more and more like each other:
"Increasingly, private insurers are behaving like state institutions and becoming much more involved in dictating treatments, particularly elective surgery. On the other hand, the state sector in Sweden, Finland and the UK is moving towards a choice model, where money follows the patient, or where a patient is reimbursed by the state for private treatment.
"This element of choice suddenly makes fulfilling outsourced contracts for the public sector much more like private sector work, where you have to build a strong relationship with the patient."
Riber says this means that the skills mix needed for both outsourced and pure private healthcare work is becoming much more similar, and that skills learnt in one sector can be transferred to the other.
56 Comments Posted Leave a comment