HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT
INNOVATIONS IN HEALTHCARE FINANCING Declaration of health as a fundamental human right in World Health Organization’s (WHO) constitution of 1948 and the agenda of Health for All by Alma-Ata declaration of 1978 were instrumental behind Universal Health Coverage (UHC). However, according to WHO and World Bank, 400 million people around the world did not have essential healthcare services. Although the overall healthcare coverage is increasing (thanks to technologies, such mHealth and advances in drugs), the coverage gap between rich and poor is also increasing in developed and developing countries. Countries are experimenting with schemes, such as low cost insurance to solve the problem. However, the success is limited and hence more innovative financing ideas are needed. This paper starts with a summary of our systematic survey of various healthcare financing options and summarizes three innovative approaches based on social business, crowdfunding and technology entrepreneurship. Pradeep Kumar Ray Yan Hanrunyu Centre For Entrepreneurship, University of Michigan-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute
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niversal Health coverage (UHC) is the platform that seeks to overcome inequality in tackling the service provision gap and financial gap that populations face. The role of ICT to build the essential building blocks of UHC has been accepted, However, there are many areas that require further research and evaluation. The use of ubiquitous technology such as mobile electronic devices to support medical or public health practice and health systems has been embraced as the new frontier of ICT that will improve efficiency and effectiveness of healthcare, especially for the majority of the world’s population that live
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A SI A N H O S P I T A L & H EA LT HCAR HCA R E M A N AGE M E N T
IS S UE - 48, 2020
in low and middle income countries. It has been predicted that by 2017 there will be ‘more mobile phones than people’ on the planet, and currently three-quarters of the world’s population have access to a mobile phone. “Mobile communication devices, in conjunction with Internet and social media, present opportunities to enhance disease prevention and management by extending health interventions beyond the reach of traditional care— an approach referred to as mHealth”. The World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that m-health has the ‘‘potential to transform the face of health service delivery across the globe”.
