The health care systems in the industrialized world suffers from the financial crisis and reduced economic growth. Innovation and development is the answer to the problems, according to a recent OECD-report which outlines a rescue plan for the welfare systems, were the increasing number of elderly and chronically ill is causing further pressure.

– Should the current level of services in the health care systems be maintained the funding issue must first be solved, but the key to success is knowledge-based development, says Professor of Health Policy and Management Johan Calltorp at the Nordic School of Public Health.

The OECD-report Health Sector Innovation and Partnership: Policy Responses to the New Economic Context deals with the health systems funding and structural problems caused by among other things an aging population combined with reduced growth. The subject of Public Health is a central source of knowledge for health care. Professor Calltorp is one of the authors of the report.

– Health care is society's most complex knowledge-based organization and it must be reflected within the organization and how it is run, says Johan Calltorp.

In today’s global economic climate, the well-developed countries' health systems are put under dual structural and organizational pressure. The aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and the transfer of economic growth to Asia and the Pacific region are affecting the western economies. The health care systems are nowadays undergoing repeated structural reforms and improvements in efficiency and quality, ever since globalization took off in the 1990s. And this process is increasing with the funding problems facing the health care machinery.

Reference:http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=108224&CultureCode=en