Health data and its application in practice. This issue was also the subject of the 2nd Annual International Panel of the Permanent Conference on Healthcare in Prague. In the last five years, more health data has been produced than in the entire history of mankind. Professor Róbert Babeľa, State Secretary of the Slovak Ministry of Health, reminded the conference that data can save lives and the state budget. Their task is to show where the state should invest effectively. Experience has already shown that this pays off for countries.
Experts at the conference agreed that several countries will face a demographic crisis in a few years. At the same time, civilization diseases are also a problem. An older and less healthy population puts pressure on healthcare systems, among other things. Several countries are already feeling the effects of this. According to Professor Babeľa, health data is necessary for the system to continue to work effectively.
„The data is used to know where and how to invest resources,“ the Slovak Health Ministry’s state secretary told the conference. According to him, there is an enormous amount of data at the moment, but more important is their quality, collection, focus and subsequent use. But when the health system does not have data, the state can invest money in inefficient measures.
It is also true that innovation is needed for healthcare systems to function properly. According to the State Secretary, these will never be cheaper and no state can afford everything. As an example, he cited the pharmaceutical company Novartis, which registered the most expensive treatment in history. „It costs well over two million euros, which is a problem for the regulator. They need to know the data behind the given innovation and diagnosis,“ he explained.
Domestic and foreign data
Studies from abroad also demonstrate the importance of data. For example, Róbert Babeľa cited a study by The Economist magazine dealing with the indirect costs of illness, which are much higher compared to the costs paid by insurance companies for illness. Another study looking at innovations in oncology found that they were able to reduce hospital admissions over 15 to 17 years. Moreover, the innovations saved more than they cost.
Slovak health data analysed by Professor Babeľa’s academic team show similar results. For example, the cost to insurance companies for asthma is around €45 million, for allergies €25 million, and for depression around €23 million. Indirect costs are much higher. These include disability, incapacity for work, loss of productivity, or premature deaths, which annually cost €542 million for asthma, €245 million for allergies, and €770 million for depression per year.
Just as important as the data itself, according to the State Secretary, is its application. „Experts say that if we invest properly in allergies, we can reduce one-third to one-half of asthma patients. We don’t have Slovak data for that yet. In the case of allergies, according to Slovak statistics, this is a saving of 18 to 82 percent with special treatment. If we invest one dollar in depression, we will get back five dollars in five years,“ Babeľa calculated.
Depression costs hundreds of thousands
Yet data shows that mental illness can lead to huge losses. According to the Slovak Ministry of Health, a company with thousands of employees may have approximately 53 workers with untreated depression. In practice, they do go to work, but the loss of productivity of their activities is at the level of 25 percent of their working time. „They do absolutely nothing at work for about 65 days , and it takes about 1.7 years before such an employee seeks out a doctor. Such an employee costs the company €429,181,“ the State Secretary said.
While the total cost of the depression is almost €23 million, up to €17 million goes to incapacity for work and disability. Therefore, five Slovak doctors started to collect their own data on their patients who used the services of psychiatric care centres. They have shown that visiting these care centres has reduced their hospitalization by 83 percent and their treatment by 29 percent. Incapacity for work was reduced by 78 percent and disability by 25 percent.
„This means that if insurance companies decide to finance €55 per day instead of €13.44 per day for one place per day in the care centres, and if they finance eight more care centres over the course of ten years, we will have already recouped our investment by the turn of the ninth and tenth year. It will return in reduced hospital admissions, treatment, incapacity for work, or disability,“ said Professor Babeľa, giving an example of the effective use of data.
The Ministry wants to improve accessibility of health data
The data can also serve as a warning for certain diseases. As Róbert Babeľa said, the cost of coronary heart disease, for example, was €146 million just three years ago. If nothing changes in this area, in eight years it will be around €200 million. The cost of strokes could rise to the same level by 2030. Yet in 2019, the cost was just €63 million.
For example, the Ministry of Health, in cooperation with the Slovak Society of Cardiology, has launched a prevention programme for cardiovascular deaths and recurrent events. „We see the costs and we will work with experts to focus this three-year programme on managing these patients,“ the State Secretary said.
The law on the National Health Information Center is also currently undergoing an inter-ministerial comment procedure, through which the Ministry of Health wants to achieve the greater availability of health data in the external environment. „So that universities, think-tanks, or anyone who wants to work with health data can do so,“ added Professor Babeľa.
In addition, the Ministry is preparing the so-called Revident project. „We want to know what is acutely happening with selected patients in selected specializations,“ the State Secretary said, adding that this will be carried out without personal data, which is not important in this case. The Ministry has also set up projects to predict which patients should definitely be invited by a GP for screening and which are not worthwhile.
Miroslav Homola
Photo: Radek Čepelák
