Digitalization Must Be at the Center of Healthcare

Accelerated digitalization in the health sector is urgent but requires an increase in public health spending. While the initial expenditure might be high, digitalization could be a watershed for this industry, explained José Alarcon Irigoyen, Partner, PwC.

In 1995, emerging countries represented only about 10 percent of total expenditure on health. By 2022, this percentage will climb to 33 percent. Mexico currently ranks 51st in the Bloomberg Global Health Index, which measures specific health risks such as tobacco use, high blood pressure, obesity, the availability of drinking water, the average life expectancy and malnutrition, among other risks. In Mexico and the world, life expectancy fell by approximately four years due to the pandemic.

“From this result, it is inferred that Mexico has a lot of work to do, but digitization is essential to address these problems cost-effectively,” said Alarcon.

Mexico is also facing an aging population and is getting closer to losing its demographic bonus. However, the country still has an active middle class composed of 50 million people, twice as many as the total population of Chile. The country, however, has a limited health budget.

“These trends, if addressed with the current care model, will require an excessively large number of personnel, infrastructure and health supplies, something that will be unsustainable for any government,” said Alarcon. Under the current model, the system would require an additional 3.5 million hospital beds, 3 million more doctors and 6 million more nurses. But there is another, more cost-effective model to achieve the desired care for patients: the digitalization of services.

“We need to move towards homecare models in terms of therapy and recovery, mobile health (mHealth) and preventive health,” said Alarcon. This will greatly reduce the amount of personnel required and the general investment necessary for the sector. Instead of requiring an investment of US$245 billion, only US$156 billion will be required, explained Alarcon.

Technology is now being used to promote prevention and increase accessibility, even in the most marginalized areas since some medical care does not require a physical installation.

Telemedicine is one of the strongest trends in the sector, with a growing number of new players entering every year. For example, the Previta platform provided care to 2,000 patients using a home care model, while also providing over 3 million digital consultations, said Alarcon. Digital pharmacy is also transforming the dynamics of the market.

The public sector is also beginning to adopt digitization initiatives. For example, COFEPRIS has been offering workshops on the digitization of its practices and processes since last year.

In addition, 84 percent of doctors in Mexico are connected to the internet and of these, 80 percent use it in their professional practice. PwC found that:

• 97 percent of doctors use the internet to read relevant content
• 95 percent use it to search for information for prescriptions
• 61 percent use it for electronic clinical records
• 44 percent use it for virtual consultations

WhatsApp is the most used medium for medical practice, reporting 90 percent use. Facebook followed it with 64 percent.

Moreover, doctors have observed that when patients search the internet before their consultation, the dynamics of their conversation change, often allowing for a better diagnosis in 83 percent of cases, shared Alarcon. In 42 percent of cases, the patient's previous research influenced the prescription, demonstrating the shared responsibility between patients and doctors.

In addition to putting digitization at the center of acquisitions, digitalization must be at the center of the regulatory conversation. The country has a limited response in terms of regulation of telemedicine and electronic perception, added Alarcon. “Mexico needs to strongly increase investment in health, in general, to potentialize the use of digitization with a human approach so that the results are much greater,” Alarcon said.