Businesses, which go beyond just healthcare providers, play a big part in improving community health.
Nearly 80% of a person's health in the United States is influenced by where the person lives and works.
Sub-Saharan Africa has a 10-year shorter life expectancy than the global average. This indicates that despite having 16% of the world's population, we bear 25% of the burden of disease, meaning that we endure a larger portion of disease than our population.
We only have 3% of the world's resources, according to Tania Joffe (Principal Lead for Unu Health), and when you start translating that into ratios, like how many doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc. there are, it has real ramifications for people in their everyday lives.
Our constitution clearly states that everyone has the right to access quality primary healthcare. It's a basic human right, and yet access to the right is hampered.
If there's one lesson to be learned from Covid-19, it's that all sectors had to adopt technology, particularly when it came to providing healthcare during the lockdown.
This prompted a digital evolution and the use of technology to close accessibility gaps through telemedicine in the comfort of our own homes, among other tech-driven advancements.
The obvious question is, what role can businesses play in reforming healthcare? According to Joffe, there is already a huge gap in terms of access to healthcare because of a lack of resources and the ability to own our well-being journeys.
“From a business standpoint, look into the number of workers who are booked off because they are sick. It has a significant impact on output in terms of productivity. Now ask yourself as a business, ‘What can I do to correct or minimize this?’,” said Joffe.
Dr. Phatho Zondi (Head of Distribution for Unu Health) says there are social repercussions to this healthcare crisis.
“South Africa has a two-tier healthcare system, public and private. The fundamental issue here is access, affordability, and quality healthcare – all of these are linked to quality access and resource constraints,” she told IOL Lifestyle.
She continues by outlining how these proposed business changes for the healthcare industry are to either build resources, which could take the form of infrastructure or funding for doctoral or nursing programmes, or de-load the system, which simply entails finding a way to reduce the number of people who enter the already overburdened healthcare system.
“What are people representing every single time they go into the primary healthcare system? If we can effectively manage primary healthcare, then we can de-risk patients,” said Dr. Zondi. She added that part of the solution is getting people affordable healthcare.
“I’ve experienced first-hand some of the frustrations that come with the overburdened system, i.e. not being able to buy medication, and just seeing people in their desperation trying to access a system that can’t adequately serve them.
“The privilege of working in business and sports environments is that you understand the role of collaboration where you also have to innovate the road to success. You can’t do the same thing the same way all the time and expect different results, so how do we then innovate to find solutions to accessible, affordable, quality healthcare? This thought process gave birth to Unu and BeWell by a) building capacity and b) de-loading the system.”
Joffe says, “Now that we are actively enacting change, we are urging corporate South Africa to do better as primary healthcare can be accessed through technology and delivered over the phone. Because if you provide people with access to primary healthcare, they will take an interest in their health. For instance, why would I want to know that I’m pre-diabetic if there’s nothing I can do about it anyway?
"Providing primary healthcare to employees enables them to learn about their condition, such as their blood sugar levels, and what to do. By providing primary healthcare, we intentionally slow the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol, etc. For example, 20% of the workforce has NCDs, which more often than not people do not know about because they do not have access to quality healthcare.
“What we’re driving toward is giving people access to healthcare so they can understand their status and provide them with the tools to own it.
“The causes of lifestyle diseases are, as we know, unmoderated alcohol consumption, tobacco use, poor dietary habits, and lack of exercise. There’s this misconstrued idea that people who get sick are people in their 40s and 50s which is true, but what’s crucial going forward is to educate young people because NCDs are significantly influenced by lifestyle choices that young people develop at a young age.”
Dr Zondi added: “Imagine the Unu app as a Spotify healthcare platform. Spotify allows you access to a library of music that you would otherwise not be able to afford. You choose what you want to listen to, and the platform allows the same gratification in context, such as booking an appointment or renewing a prescription.”