Philips’ 2022 Future Health Index reveals SA healthcare leaders’ post-pandemic priorities

The 2022 FHI Report paints a picture of a sector that has seen a dramatic transformation in recent years, which has accelerated rapidly over the past 12 months. Rather than continuing to focus solely on the pandemic, today’s healthcare leaders are radically shifting their priorities to meet new realities in medical management – by focusing on people first and South Africa is no different.

Speaking at the launch of the report in Johannesburg, Philips South Africa Managing Director, Romulen Pillay said the 2022 report reflects a resetting of priorities and of care delivery itself, as healthcare leaders reprioritise care fundamentals to change care to the way it should be – accessible, reliable and efficient.

The FHI 2022 South Africa report highlighted three areas that are top priority for the country’s healthcare leaders as they strive to further expand access to care and improve patient outcomes:

Employee well-being and retention are at the top of the agenda for healthcare leaders to counter growing staff shortages. In South Africa, the number of leaders prioritizing improving staff satisfaction and retention (34%) today has increased sharply from 2021 (24%) and is higher than the global average of 30%.

“With the sector facing a significant 15 million labour shortfall by 2030, improving the staff experience has become a top priority for today’s leaders. This year’s report has shown that South African leaders are most hopeful about the benefits that predictive analytics could bring to the staff experience (59%) and health inequality (59%), while 56% trust it could make population health management more efficient. However, improving staff experience is just one piece of the puzzle – fixing the labour crisis in the long term will ultimately depend on the successful coordination of governments, regulators, and the industry as a whole to improve working conditions across the board,” said Pillay.

As South African healthcare leaders struggle with staff shortages and a limited technology infrastructure, they are identifying ways to overcome these obstacles and maximize the data they have available. In South Africa, one of the main ways leaders believe they can improve data utilization is increasing expertise in this area among their staff. With just 4% of leaders believing they have all the capabilities they need internally, hiring data specialists (24%) and training current staff on data utilization (20%), feature prominently among South African healthcare leaders’ top means of improving data usage.

While there is massive disparity between investment in AI (87%), current adoption levels of predictive analytics in South Africa (12%) are significantly lower than the global average (24%).

As more organizations reap the rewards of machine-generated insights in both clinical and operational settings, such as enhanced decision-making and lowered administrative burdens, we expect to see increased demand for peer-to-peer mentorships between early and late adopters, as well as strategic partnerships with health technology companies, bringing the whole sector up to speed.

“All things considered, our sector has taken stock and reprioritized in the wake of another year of transformations, and against a growing backdrop of complex challenges that will endure far beyond the pandemic. Ultimately, we see healthcare leaders embarking on a reset to meet the demands of a fundamentally changed world – a world they hope to shape and improve with the help of data and predictive analytics,” says Pillay.