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The health story: we all have a role to play
Today we celebrate the World Health Day and the WHO’s 75th anniversary. We recognize “a story of human perseverance, innovation, commitment, bringing communities together towards one unified goal”. And, above all, we celebrate the future, (not so) unknown yet bright, a canvas yet to be unfold.
Matilde Ferreira
April 7, 2023 · 5 min read
In 1948, 55 member states came together to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. It was the vision of the World Health Organization (WHO) that everyone across the globe should be able to access the highest level of health and wellbeing.
Seventy-five years ago, in the aftermath of World War II, the most deadly and destructive war in human history, the Constitution of the WHO came into force. Through the decades, many important milestones were achieved: the eradication of smallpox or the reduction in malaria and tuberculosis transmission are good examples of "what is possible when nations come together for a common purpose", as recently stated by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Today we celebrate the World Health Day and the WHO’s 75th anniversary. We are recognizing "a story of human perseverance, innovation, commitment, bringing communities together towards one unified goal".
And, above all, at UpHill, we are celebrating the future, (not so) unknown yet bright, a canvas yet to be unfold.
Classic challenges, emergent ones, and a call for global action
WHO has been spearheading efforts to improve social conditions so that people are born, grow, work, live and age with good health. Along the way well-known challenges have raised and pushed health to the spotlight.
People are living longer but not necessarily better and demanding more and more for the healthcare system; available new therapeutics and health technologies make the current health systems radically different from the ones we had in the 20th century, and patients’ expectations for convenience, affordability, quality, value, and cost transparency are redefining how they engage at each stage of care.
Better governance to strengthen healthcare systems’ resilience and sustainability has become a commonplace among decision-makers. However, the forces of inefficiency, protected by the information and knowledge asymmetry, have always driven care to remain static and fragmented, and even with decades of telemedicine evolution and a pandemic, we haven’t had a profound shift in the healthcare experience, ignoring the limits of those who navigate the chaos of the days.
A few months ago, we summed it up: "The routine goes on. Mechanic. Timed. Heavy. Indifferent to the arguments of those who live under the weight of impotence. Indifferent to the words shouted looking for an echoed response". The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing issues around the mental health and well-being of healthcare workers and laid bar the workforce shortages across global health systems. The current workforce crisis emerged as a bottleneck to foster healthcare quality and health equity.
It was about time to act and start a new chapter. "The change starts now", we assured.
While waiting, the world is rushing.
For the past has shaped our journey, the present is where we must thrive, and the story of health continues to be twirled.
The future chapters will surely be written in closer collaboration between healthcare professionals, the population, and societies. The call for action seems clear: it is time to engage and empower individuals, families and communities for increased social participation and enhanced self-care in health. And in this topic, we are scripting relevant paragraphs.
Patients strive for better health and care experience, medical interventions grow exponentially, from pharmaceutical and surgical to digital, and move out of the perimeter of the hospital, showing healthcare systems will be replaced by a global, digital-first player that is able to guide patients through the best care with the best experience, leading to unparalleled outcomes.
To adapt to people, healthcare providers need to have the grounds to design and redesign care offers without the weight of capital infrastructure, people-tied traditions, and data privacy and security out-of-proportion brakes. That’s why we bet on care redesign with digital orchestration to shape a world where every person always gets the best care available, achieving health and wellness, in a boundaries-free environment.
The change has started indeed. We are working together: healthcare workers, patients, and caregivers!
- Linking fragmented episodes of care into multidisciplinary care journeys;
- Breaking down barriers and silos that isolate teams and providers;
- Bringing patients closer to their health;
- Allocate resources according to evidence-based clinical risk and patients’ needs;
- Reliving healthcare professionals from clinically undifferentiated tasks;
- Democratizing the use of data to promote better health outcomes;
- Trusting in digital automation to increase systems capacity and on connectivity to improve equity.
This is a story about all of us. Science, solutions, and solidarity are building rocks for the healthcare systems of tomorrow. And we are thrilled to shout out that UpHill solutions are playing their role.
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