By :Neil Foo
Kuala Lumpur — Accounts for 10 per cent of the world’s population and 20 per cent of the world’s disease burden, yet commands only 3 per cent of global healthcare expenditure, South East Asia healthcare growth is primarily driven by the rising middle-class, increasing incidence of chronic diseases and rapidly growing of ageing population. Yet, the low public spending on healthcare has created challenging operating healthcare landscape.
The relatively underdeveloped healthcare system supported by investor friendly policies and collaborations, would be needed to create a stronger healthcare ecosystem.
As the region more urbanised, the incidence of chronic diseases to double from 2001 to 2025. The healthcare market in Southeast Asia, valued at USD71 billion, remains significantly under-penetrated.
With the threat of Coronavirus Covic-19 pandemic and other frequent infectious diseases like SARS, H1N1 Influenza continue to appear in our surroundings at the short intervals, we will see more of the health conscious and care of environment around the world and this region as the “New Normal”.
Likewise, according to a worldwide survey by World Health Organization (WHO), a majority of us are classified under the “sub-health” condition.
Sub-health condition is a borderline state between healthy and sick. Although this means that you are not sick, you actually do not feel well.
Based on a study of the World Health Organization (WHO): 95% of the population of the world are in an unhealthy condition, 20% are ill, 75% are at the sub-healthy state (the body’s ability to start to decline, leading to diseases if it is not taken seriously), and the other 5% are considered healthy.
The reasons for the unhealthy population may due to the exponential growth of the global population leads to the high density of the living condition of the 70% urbanization trend and globalization of human movements with easy spread of diseases, the hectic lifestyle creating imbalance dietary, food and environmental contamination and pollution and so on.
The global health expenditure per capita continues to grow rapidly and is predicted to reach USD1794 (RM7716.97) in the year of 2020, the total worth of health industries globally is predicted to attain up to USD12.8 Billion (RM55 trillion) !
The Future of Healthcare Economy
The healthcare industry being one of the largest industries of the world, has a total health expenditure of around 10% of the total of the GWP yearly, is the new motivation of the world’s economic development.
The comprehensive health issue is a global issue, which follows the increase of its crisis awareness and necessities, leading to a rapid growth in the comprehensive health industry.
Healthcare industry related products and services include:
- Healthcare services
- Medical supplies
- Health supplements
- Medical equipment
- Leisure, health and wellness services
- Health information consultation etc
Healthcare industry chain can be divided into :
Content
- Healthcare production (produce and operate)
- Healthcare services (providing services) i.e. medical and health care, leisure and health care, residential work.
Structure
- Core : Medical care, supplements, medical equipment
- Mezzanine : Physiotherapy, tourism and vacations, consultation and training
- Supporting : F&B, hotels, real estate, offices, wholesale, retail, logistics
The driving forces of the proliferation of the healthcare industry are:
- Globalization
- Aging Population, sub-healthy state, climate and environmental change
- The more frequent spread of contagious diseases
- Technological development such as 5G and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Medical health systems with low costs and high efficiencies
- Surplus of real estate causing the developers to embrace the healthcare element as a marketing strategy
Based on a study of the World Health Organization (WHO): 95% of the population of the world are in an unhealthy condition, 20% are ill, 75% are at the sub-healthy state
