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Sustainable Upscaling: The Role of Digitalization in Providing Health Care and Health Insurance Coverage in Developing Countries

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Digitalization, Digital Transformation and Sustainability in the Global Economy

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Abstract

How can sustainability in the health sector be achieved in a situation where the poor (rightly) demand access to basic health services, the growing global middle class (rightly) demand the right to spend more of their resources on health services, and people in industrialized countries (rightly) demand continued access to high-quality health care? IT systems are often difficult and expensive to design and implement, but the marginal costs of providing additional services are negligible. This is what makes digital health services so powerful in achieving universal health coverage. Digitalization can improve access to health care services, and it can support health insurances in processing large numbers of claims and payments. Both are essential to upscaling health services especially in developing countries.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See United Nations (1987).

  2. 2.

    See, for example, Hardcastle et al. (2017).

  3. 3.

    See, for example, van der Vliet et al. (2018).

  4. 4.

    See Carnero (2015). For a literature review on sustainability in the health sector, see Marimuthu and Paulose (2016). A more recent aspect appears to be the sustainability of the supply chains in the health sector. See Subramanian et al. (2020).

  5. 5.

    There is currently one hospital in Germany which aims to become a ‘Zero Emissions Hospital’ by 2030. See, for example, KMA-Online (2020).

  6. 6.

    See, for example, Kimberly-Clark (n.d.).

  7. 7.

    See UN (2015).

  8. 8.

    See UNDP (2015).

  9. 9.

    World Bank (n.d.), for example, indicates that out-of-pocket health expenditures have increased in many regions of the world.

  10. 10.

    See Kharas and Hamel (2018).

  11. 11.

    For a broader discussion on the relation between innovation and sustainable development, see McGahan et al. (2014).

  12. 12.

    See Thiel et al. (2018).

  13. 13.

    See Mechael and Edelman (2019), p. 12.

  14. 14.

    See Waschinski (2019)

  15. 15.

    For a list, albeit incomplete, of English-language sources, see HCF (n.d.).

  16. 16.

    See Nationales Gesundheitsportal (n.d.).

  17. 17.

    See BMG (2020). Currently, there are Knowledge Panels for more than 160 diseases covered by the National Health Portal.

  18. 18.

    See BfArM (n.d. a).

  19. 19.

    See BfArM (n.d. b).

  20. 20.

    See Brinker et al. (2019).

  21. 21.

    See Geissler (2017) for a detailed discussion on the automation of business processes in health insurances. In Geissler (2018) I argue that (almost) fully automated health insurances are generally possible.

  22. 22.

    See Geissler (2018) for a more detailed discussion of changes and strategic challenges for health insurances by digitalization.

  23. 23.

    See Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (n.d.).

  24. 24.

    See Fuest (2018).

  25. 25.

    See Wiener Zeitung (2020).

  26. 26.

    See Macdonald (2020).

  27. 27.

    See van Deursen and van Dijk (2015), p. 380f for a more general discussion of the digital divide.

  28. 28.

    See van Deursen and van Dijk (2015), p. 388.

  29. 29.

    See Bott and Gill (2020).

  30. 30.

    See Downey (2020).

  31. 31.

    See SNOMED (n.d.).

  32. 32.

    See WHO (2019).

  33. 33.

    See WHO (2020).

  34. 34.

    See ISfTeH (n.d.).

  35. 35.

    See AeHIN (n.d.).

  36. 36.

    See ECHA (n.d.).

  37. 37.

    See DHIS2 (n.d.).

  38. 38.

    See openIMIS (n.d.).

  39. 39.

    See Krüger-Brand (2020).

  40. 40.

    The German example would be the company gematik. See gematik (n.d.).

  41. 41.

    In Germany, this function is performed nationally by the health innovation hub which was set up in 2019; see BMG (n.d.).

  42. 42.

    See, for example, Deutsches Ärzteblatt (2020); GTAI (2020).

  43. 43.

    See, for example, ISfTeH (2020) for a collection of Covid-19 information and resources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. FOM University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Jens Geissler

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  1. Jens Geissler
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Correspondence to Jens Geissler .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Andrássy University Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

    Tim A. Herberger

  2. Andrássy University Budapest, Budapest, Hungary

    Jörg J. Dötsch

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Geissler, J. (2021). Sustainable Upscaling: The Role of Digitalization in Providing Health Care and Health Insurance Coverage in Developing Countries. In: Herberger, T.A., Dötsch, J.J. (eds) Digitalization, Digital Transformation and Sustainability in the Global Economy. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77340-3_5

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