Study raises key issues on health care financing management

A new research paper from Siemens Financial Services, entitled Healthcare Affordability - the Global Challenge, highlights the need for efficient use of capital in western world health care systems. In order to make the wide range of existing systems comparable, the paper also calls for a simple method of measuring value for money from national health care regimes in Europe and the USA.

The paper has created a very basic starting-point. It suggests that Germany's health care system offers a comparably good return on investment in relation to that of other key European countries and the USA - in terms of basic health care provision, life expectancy and cost. Moreover, the paper focuses attention on technology and equipment finance as an area which can be made more financially efficient in the short-term. It also shows the amount of capital that is "frozen" in the system when equipment is bought outright rather than leased, hired or otherwise financed. The equivalent amount of this frozen capital is estimated to be over 10.0 billion euros ($12.8 billion) in the main European economies and some 20.0 billion euros or more in the USA.

The authors especially suggest extended use of tailor-made leasing and other forms of equipment financing solutions to meet technological, financial and medical requirements.