Global Perspective: Increased health care costs and advancing medical technology lead to improved patient care and better cost-saving measures

Rising health care costs, ageing populations and changing lifestyles in emerging economies are stoking demand for medical technology (medtech) solutions. These entail not just smart devices that remotely monitor and transmit biometric data, but any instance of technology that helps to deliver health services. These initiatives are happening everywhere, but there are significant differences in the speed and scale of medtech adoption across emerging markets.

UBS Investment Bank estimates that the emerging market health care sector will grow 6.3% annually over the next decade – double the speed of developed markets – as governments make up for historic underinvestment. Emerging markets routinely spend less than 10% of GDP on health care, contrasted with close to 15% spent by developed countries, but are working to reduce the deficit. Ageing populations are a catalyst, and the UN estimates that by 2030, the 65-and-over demographic in emerging markets will rise to 15% of the population, up from 10%.

Concurrent with the rise in elderly patients needing care, diagnosis of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is expected to increase. This is due to urbanisation and sedentary lifestyles accelerating the incidence of cancers, cardiovascular and chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes. NCDs demand longer and more expensive treatment programmes than many other illnesses. Therefore, emerging markets are investing in cost-effective medtech solutions to improve root cause analysis and patient care, while simultaneously reducing the rate of readmissions.

Read the full Global Perspective in The Report: Cote d'Ivoire 2019