SIEMENS

According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), a child born in Kenya today will have a life expectancy of 60 years. That child’s 60-year-old grandmother can probably look forward to another 17 years of life. In China the life expectancy of a newborn is 74 years, while 60-year-olds will reach an average age of 79 years. On the other hand, a child born in Germany today will more than likely live through to the next century — considering that the average life expectancy there is 78 years for boys and 83 years for girls.

This comparison illustrates the stark discrepancies that still affect the lives of children born in different countries. But it also shows that people who reach retirement age have a similar life expectancy all over the world. What’s difficult are the earlier stages of life. According to the WHO, 361 out of 1,000 people from the world’s poorest countries will die between the ages of 15 and 60. Countries with a low to medium average income will experience 210 deaths per 1,000 inhabitants in this age range (approximately the global average), while only 115 out of 1,000 people in this group will die in nations with very high average incomes.

Why is that? A few years ago the answer would have been simple. Life-threatening infectious diseases such as malaria and measles, which are practically extinct in industrialized countries, were responsible for large numbers of deaths in developing countries and emerging markets. Thanks to improvements in hygiene and vaccination, however, the situation has drastically improved since then, with the exception of some of the world’s poorest countries. According to the United Nation’s latest report on its Millennium Development Goals, significant progress has been made in the battle against HIV, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases in many parts of the world — even though progress has been slow in the poorest nations of South Asia and Latin America. The goals for safe drinking water that had originally been set for 2015 were actually already met in 2010. Yet almost 800 million people around the world have access to drinking water of only dubious quality.

Today, people are increasingly suffering from non-infectious diseases, whether chronic or acute in nature. These include coronary and circulatory diseases, cancer, respiratory illnesses, and diabetes. The risk factors are well-known: tobacco and alcohol, an unhealthy diet, high blood pressure, and excessive blood glucose and cholesterol levels. In fact, these unhealthy aspects of modern life are now also beginning to affect developing and newly industrializing countries. Dr. Norbert Hültenschmidt, a health expert from consulting firm Bain & Company, explains one such example: “In India, the improvement in the quality of life is being accompanied by the rise of diseases that are typical of affluent countries, such as obesity.”
In China, where 200 million inhabitants have achieved a standard of living that is comparable to that in Europe, a much higher proportion of people die of diabetes and coronary and circulatory diseases than in most industrialized countries, according to WHO figures. In its global status report, the WHO refers to an “invisible epidemic” that has become one of the most underestimated causes of poverty and underdevelopment in many countries. According to WHO estimates, 36 million out of 57 million deaths worldwide were caused by non-contagious diseases in 2008. In poorer countries, mostly younger people are affected: WHO figures show that in these countries 41 percent of adult mortality under the age of 60 is caused by such diseases — three times as much as in the wealthiest countries. Some of the side effects of this development are high treatment costs and losses in productivity totaling $47 billion within the next two decades, according to a study by the World Economic Forum in Davos and the Harvard School for Public Health.

“All healthcare systems around the world face the same challenges — namely, sharply rising costs due to an increased demand for services. This is being driven by increased wealth and an aging population,” says Hültenschmidt, who also points out the pronounced disparity between national healthcare costs. In the United States these costs add up to 17.9 percent of the gross domestic product, while in Germany the figure is 11.6 percent, and in developing countries it ranges between five and seven percent. In Kenya, $7 — adjusted for purchasing power — are spent per capita on healthcare every month, according to WHO estimates. In China the figure is $32, in Germany it’s $300, and in the United States it’s $370.

Sooner or later many countries will have to institute sweeping healthcare reforms. One shining example is Denmark, which has introduced a highly efficient system of electronic medical files and tax incentives to encourage visits to the family physician. Another example is Singapore, where every citizen has a right to free basic healthcare. Additional medical services are financed from a kind of personal account that works similarly to life insurance.

Sooner or later many countries will have to institute sweeping healthcare reforms. One shining example is Denmark, which has introduced a highly efficient system of electronic medical files and tax incentives to encourage visits to the family physician. Another example is Singapore, where every citizen has a right to free basic healthcare. Additional medical services are financed from a kind of personal account that works similarly to life insurance.

Fortunately, modern technology often offers the potential to improve the quality of healthcare while simultaneously lowering costs. This is due to a number of factors. These include the introduction of electronic medical records; close networking among patients, insurance companies, and doctors; more efficient clinical processes; improved preventive check-ups and early recognition of diseases; and treatments and drugs that are tailored to the needs of specific groups of patients, to name just a few.

But will these measures help to lower healthcare costs? “We have to be realistic,” says Hültenschmidt. “Only measures that take all parties into consideration will help us achieve increased efficiency as well as improved quality. Ideally, these measures will at least stabilize our healthcare costs and at the same time create room for innovations.”