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The case for international healthcare corridors – Healthcare News
By Rachna Dayal Goel and Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan
The world is experiencing a global health crisis, where healthcare systems and institutions are facing failures and collapses like never before. The triggers for this are many, but the consequences are drastic for both patients and healthcare professionals. Some of the main negative impacts of decades of activity are the lack of doctors where they are needed most, the burnout and abandonment of doctors at unprecedented rates, the lack of access to medicines due to supply chain problems and nationalism, different frameworks regulations and the lack of data transparency between countries. countries for global population health problems.
Significant efforts will be needed by countries to overcome these challenges and guide national health systems to a place where population health can thrive and where there is a balance between demand and supply of skilled labor, products and services. No nation can alone produce all the health products and services needed by its citizens. However, given the geopolitical complexity of current times, it is also unwise to establish strong partnerships with regions and countries with which principles are not aligned.
Choosing the right healthcare business partners becomes a strategic decision with a long-term perspective for success and development. We recommend thinking about trade in health goods and services between countries in terms of “Health Corridors” – a word we coined here – which can guarantee a greater probability of success for strategic partnerships between countries. In this article, we develop some basic and broad operating principles for these ‘Health Corridors’ and provide some higher-level metrics that can measure the effectiveness and success of these Health Corridors once established.
Definition of Health Corridor
A ‘Health Corridor’ between two or more countries can be defined as an integrated and interdependent system of design, innovation, manufacturing and other services related to Health and Wellbeing that are developed within a designated industrial cluster, within economic zones defined between the two. or more countries. Successful Health Corridors will balance the demand and supply of health products and services between the two countries and, in doing so, will have a positive impact on the economic growth of both countries and encourage bilateral trade, in addition to promoting good -being and health of people in general. in the corridor countries.
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Countries involved in Health Corridor development must pay close attention to cross-border health and economic needs and reach a common understanding and agreement on policies, investments and metrics of success that can be measured. With this approach, there are greater chances of success and strengthening of political and business relations between the countries involved. Of course, many of the usual challenges involved in trade agreements also apply to these corridors. Some of them have to do with the balance between industrial policy and free trade, for example. Questions such as the following are indeed complicated and have to be addressed on a case-by-case basis: To what extent should we allow foreign healthcare professionals to enter our country so that our local healthcare professionals do not lose their status? jobs or face pay cuts or be discouraged from practicing the profession? To what extent should we allow our own workers to travel abroad, given the acute shortage of such workers at home?
Preparing for success
To enable the development of a strong “Health Corridor” between countries, it is important that the governments involved understand the level of confidence that private investors have in bilateral trade and investments between the two countries. What are the challenges and main reasons for failure in the past, if any? Can these challenges be mitigated through political efforts or investment? Can certain initiatives be launched in a hurry to address burning issues in all countries? Let’s consider an example in the USA/India in the healthcare sector:
The U.S. faces a shortage of doctors due to a variety of reasons, including physician burnout, longevity, strikes, and doctors leaving the profession for other professions such as entrepreneurship. India, on the other hand, has a very young, well-educated and trained workforce. Furthermore, the Indian government is investing extensively in medical, paramedical, clinical and other healthcare education. Given this situation, a dedicated ‘Health Care Corridor’ could work to allow special clinical visas for Indian doctors in the US to meet the healthcare needs of its population. This would be a policy and immigration-focused solution and could be limited in time or number based on U.S. healthcare needs.
Performance Monitoring
Over time, some simple metrics can help monitor the health (pun intended) of the “Health Corridor” between any two countries. These metrics can be as simple as ease of regulatory approval for medical products, political stability, access to healthcare talent, access to capital for healthcare investments, and immigration/special visas for healthcare professionals needed in both countries. It is important to get feedback from industry leaders in these metrics and not just government officials to ensure that commerce is indeed flourishing within the “Health Corridor”.
(The authors: Rachna Dayal Goel is managing partner at Sugati Ventures and Dr. Badri Narayanan Gopalakrishnan is a member of NITI Aayog. The views expressed in the article are those of the authors and not those of their affiliated institutions or financialexpress.com.)