The healthcare industry warns that EU funds are insufficient: “We need more money”

Although the Government will invest, through ‘Next Generation’ funds, almost 800 million euros in renovating the technology park of Spanish hospitals, for the sector this figure is clearly insufficient. First swords of the health technology industry warn that the investment will have to be greater if Spain wants to take a step forward towards a state-of-the-art National Health System or become obsolete again.

“Welcome to the funds for the Inveat Plan, but we need more money“, has indicated María Vila, CEO of Medtronic Ibérica. “We have to seize this opportunity to transform the capacity of the healthcare system.”

“Now we are going to live from a pandemic of people with cancer who have not been able to go to the system, surgeries that have not been done, people with heart problems and unmonitored diabetes …”. To address this situation, he considers that a significant commitment must be made to remote monitoring systems and intelligent surgical blocks. In sum: for the digitization of the health system.

“But we have not seen this in European funds.” Dionisio Martinez, Managing Director of Dräger in Spain and Portugal, has explained that, just to be able to renew hospital equipment, 1,600 million would be necessary. That is to say, twice as much as proposed.

Spain is below average in healthcare spending both in the OECD and in the EU. Therefore, he calls for “transforming the health system and taking it to the next level.”

One in which “the patient has to be the center of attention. You have the right to receive the same health care no matter where you live. The data generated by the patient must be shared between hospitals and Primary Care, and between all the autonomous communities. “As well as in the public and private sectors, whose alliance must be” strengthened. “

“The companies have presented projects in which we believe we should invest,” says Martínez. In this sense, Fenin has proposed one with six lines of work, especially aimed at “stop offshoring and move to a 4.0 model of sustainable healthcare technology and cost optimization“, explained Jorge Huertas, vice president of Fenin.

These issues have been addressed in the ‘II Health Observatory Symposium: The Lessons of Covid-19’, organized by EL ESPAÑOL and Invertia. There Martinez has also indicated that “the Administration views what we have presented with interest, especially since it is difficult to say no. But we do not yet have the visibility of how all this is going to take place.. Now we have to see how they are translated into specific aid and programs that companies can access “.

“We have a unique opportunity to make a structural intervention,” he said. Adriana rubio, CEO of Roche Diagnostics Spain. “We have learned with pain that the lack of prevention and diagnosis lead to chronicity or intervention with an acute phase.”

In this sense, it bets on the “definition of algorithms that allow us to identify risk“which would allow a 25% reduction in hospitalizations and dedicate funds” to other areas. This is a unique moment in the history of health. “

In any case, Rubio has insisted on comprehensive work among all health actors. “None of us have the right answer. We have to prepare for the next pandemics and generate interventions that have an impact.”

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