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COVID-19 offers a “unique opportunity” to build healthcare systems that are both agile enough to deal with future crises and strong enough to overcome existing challenges.
That’s according to a new policy paper from the European Alliance for Value in Health. Health Systems after COVID-19: Building Resilience Through a Value-Based Approach argues that instead of trying to reinstate the pre-pandemic status quo, the sector should “strive to reimagine” how health systems are organised and operated.
“The onset of (the pandemic) presents rare momentum to realise ambitious reforms and establish a new paradigm for defining and building health system resilience that will also answer the long-term health challenges Europe faces.”
The policy paper calls for a broad assessment of health system resilience and using the findings as a basis for the building of a value-based system that will improve care across the board. This outcomes-focused, holistic approach would reorganise the allocation of resources towards “high-value care and prevention that tackles unmet meet”, and create healthier, more resilient populations and societies, it says.
“A key take-home message from the ongoing pandemic is that health systems produce and spill over well-being to the entire society, while, predictably, their lack of resilience can have detrimental spill over effects to economic, social and government activity.”