Approach
Socio Economics Effects
SPEX brings about a number of positive socio-economic effects:
- Reduction of social exclusion and contribution to overall quality of life – Through SPEX, the quality of life of patients living in peripheral areas will improve because of their opportunity to have access to quality healthcare without the need to travel. The SPEX system is instrumental in guaranteeing to European citizens an equitable access to quality healthcare irrespective of their place of residence. This is a particularly sensitive issue as surveys have shown that chances of survival, e.g. for some forms of cancer, can increase by as much as a factor 5 depending on where a patient is treated. It is justified to affirm that SPEX, when fully deployed, will go a long way towards improving the overall quality of life for a substantial number of European citizens, as quality of healthcare is an important element of quality of life in general.
- Sharing of medical knowledge – Through the training provided in the framework of the SPEX agreement, the medical knowledge of the Centres of Excellence will be shared with the healthcare professionals practicing in the peripheral outlets.
- Improvement of the European research resources – Thanks to the redirection of simple cases towards the peripheral outlets, the Centres of Excellence will have the possibility to focus again their highly skilled personnel on research activities. The SPEX care model should therefore stimulate medical research in Europe for the benefit of European citizens.
- Increase European competitiveness – SPEX should increase the competitive appeal of the European medical research sector. Eliminating from the daily routine of researchers the burden of trivial medical activities that can be transferred via SPEX to the accredited outlets, researchers will be keener to stay in Europe instead of relocating to the U.S.A. This will reduce the well known problem of the “brain drain”. Better retention of skilled researcher will result in increased competitiveness of the European economic system as a whole because of the recognised link between research investment and economic competitiveness.
- Better use of expensive health care facilities – SPEX will contribute to an increase in the activities of the peripheral Points of Care and will reduce unnecessary face-to-face consultations with specialists of the Excellence Centres. Points of Care will filter patients who really require care directly provided by the Centres of Excellence. This will have a twofold positive impact on citizens: as patients, because they will waste less time and suffer less inconvenience to receive high-quality care, and as tax payers, because tax money will be spent more wisely without lowering the level of care.
- Job creation – SPEX will also have a positive effect on the employment level. Although demand for health care services is not expected to increase in absolute terms because the market for such services is and will remain regulated in most countries, jobs are going to be created among the service providers, which supply and manage the service infrastructure. There, a number of jobs will be created, which can be conservatively evaluated at 30 in the Initial Deployment Phase. When the service is fully implemented throughout the European Union, the number of jobs created could be as high as several hundreds. These new jobs will not all accrue to the SPEX partners because, by then, a number of other players will be also active in the market.
- Economic Development – The virtuous circle triggered by the birth of a new generation of healthcare telematics service providers will have a positive impact on the European economy as a whole. This, in turn, will create a favourable environment for start-up companies in this, and in other closely related emerging markets.
