Untapped potential in the Norwegian healthcare sector
Key takeaways from ‘Health: Investments and Big Tech trends’ at Bergen Chamber of Commerce and Industry
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In February 2023, some of the leading healthcare innovators on the Norwegian West Coast together with the world-renowned “Mother of Universal Design”, Dr. Patricia Moore met at Bergen Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The theme for the day involved innovation in health tech. EGGS’ Mari Gloppen Hunnes and Martine Akselberg Hatlebrekke were present, and they summarise their key takeaways in this article.
High healthcare costs for average services
According to Torleif Markussen Lunde from Eitri, Norway is the country in the world that has the most healthcare staff per citizen. In Bergen alone, there are 23 000 people employed in the healthcare sector. Norway is also the country in the world with the second highest costs for public healthcare per capita. However, the services' quality is average compared to other countries. Why is that? Norway is usually good at using innovation and technology to cut costs – but not when it comes to healthcare.
Untapped potential for the export sector
Not only are we missing out on opportunities to save money, but we are also missing out on making money. Norwegian healthcare export is estimated to be 27 billion NOK a year, where less than 1% is related to IT according to Barbara Salopek, one of the key speakers from Vinco. The situation is rather different in our neighboring countries as pointed out by Torgrim Isaksen from DNB – Denmark exports around 210 billion in healthcare, and Sweden around 130 billion a year.
How can we release the potential in Norwegian healthcare and health tech?
1. Mapping the trends in health tech
One crucial part of successful innovation is to stay on top of trends. In innovation strategist Barbara Salopek’s presentation, she presented three reasons how trend analysis helps drive innovation:
It enables you to better understand users’ needs
It allows you to identify new business opportunities
It lets you track the changing market dynamics and stay relevant
2. Stay tuned to market drivers
As a result of Covid-19, one of the current market drivers is the increase in tele-health and its role in care delivery. Furthermore, in the aim to reduce cost, medicare and medical populations' needs are a growing focus area.
Taking a human perspective remains essential when innovating the health sector. As Dr. Patricia Moore said in her presentation: ”We need to design for humans. Focusing on patient experiences brings more accessibility, transparency, and personalisation to the overall experience”.Governments will not be able to take care of us alone, there needs to be more focus on self-care, autonomy and a shift in mindset from “illness to wellness” when we design for the future.
The last, but certainly not least, market driver is data. There has been a substantial increase in market activity in health data platforms, providing methods for payers and providers to comply with emerging data-sharing requirements like data aggregation and analytics.
“We need to design for humans. Focusing on patient experiences brings more accessibility, transparency, and personalisation to the overall experience.”Dr. Patricia Moore
3. Look into various investment areas
The big tech companies are already highly involved also in the health sector - Google, Oracle, Amazon, and Apple, and are investing in four primary areas of investment:
Health data
Precision medicine
Wearables
Providers market
As Barbara Salopet pointed out in her presentation, Norway and Norwegian health players can gain and release much potential by investing more in the first two – health data and precision medicine.
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