Post-pandemic world needs leaders

Europe had not yet recovered from the pandemic, while war, the first in decades, broke out. It caused problems in many areas, including food security.

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W postpandemicznym świecie potrzeba liderów

Europa musi się zmierzyć z wieloma kryzysami. By z nich wyjść, niezbędni są liderzy – nie tylko polityczni, ale też ci z konkretnych branż, takich jak np. ochrona zdrowia.

The Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports revived the spectre of famine across the world. According to Mykola Solskyi, Ukraine’s Minister of Agriculture, we need to remove the cause of the crisis in the first place, i.e. defeat Russia as soon as possible. Currently, part of Ukraine’s grain flows through the Black Sea, but this results only from the goodwill of the aggressor and we cannot rely on it. It is necessary to find new routes, through Romanian ports, for example. Otherwise, food prices and market uncertainty will continue to rise.

Henryk Kowalczyk, Poland’s Agriculture Minister, agreed with this opinion. He concluded that Europe has to supply Ukraine with weapons until victory to remove the cause of the current food crisis. It is also necessary to provide adequate technical support for the transport of grain and open new routes to bring relief to overstretched infrastructure of Poland and Ukraine. The spectre of famine in Africa is also a big problem for Europe as it could trigger a massive wave of migration within months. The Minister also pointed to other threats to the food market, i.e. problems with fertiliser production caused by the energy crisis and droughts in southern Europe. In his opinion, the parts of the European Green Deal that cause a reduction in agricultural production should be suspended to address these threats. Food security is a priority.

Michał Grzybowski, CEO of Philips Polska, pointed out that we should talk not only about safety but also access to health care to meet basic human needs.

2020 was a year of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been two years since then. We have not yet fully recovered but have to face a war breaking supply chains. Furthermore, Europe has to face the challenges that it has not yet overcome, such as an ageing population, he said. As a result of the population ageing, more and more people need care (also as a result of migration) while the number of doctors and nurses remains the same.

At Philips, we are thinking about how to respond to these problems and how to prepare for the next challenges, e.g. the next epidemiological crises, so as not to hold back the whole system, Michał Grzybowski explained. The idea is to make the system more resilient so that the next crisis does not stop it.

He pointed out that we need to move towards value-based health care systems to achieve resilience. We should also look for more decentralised health care models. In the treatment of patients, we must look for health service quality and, above all, the overall effect of health services on the patient, and not only at how many services we have provided, he said. Currently, the patient has to go to a hospital or clinic. Instead, our primary aim should be to ensure that they can receive home or community care, he added.

He emphasised that more resilient health systems should be based on information technologies that enable the smooth and secure migration of patient data in the care system.

While this is already in place in some countries, we still need to strive for better data flow between medical facilities and management of the information we have in Poland, he said. Philips prepares the Future Health Index report every year to understand the needs of our partners. In 2022, the report covered 15 countries, including Poland. As part of the survey, we asked health care leaders about the challenges for the future and their priorities, he added.

The report showed that the leaders are very keen to implement information technology in health care. In Poland, more than 30% of the leaders believe that this would make systems more sustainable and 66% say that IT infrastructure is a priority.