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Primary Care

 

Interview: Daniel Soukup, head of EUC Virtual Clinic

The Czech Republic's largest primary care and occupational healthcare provider by revenue, EUC, has been leading the charge in bringing digital health care to the country. Daniel Soukup, head of its Virtual Clinic, tells HBI that while the service has before been only for its private-pay patients, it is starting to work much closer with public insurers to bring telemedicine to more people.

Bioiatriki founder dies of COVID-19

Evangelos Spanos, the founder of Greece's largest private primary care and diagnostics chain, has died from COVID-19. What's next for Bioatriki?

Spain and Israel’s GPs among worst paid in OECD

Spain and Israel's General Practitioners (GPs) rank among the worst paid in the OECD when accounting for purchasing power. HBI looks at a new healthcare salary index to compare pay across the world.

Covid: The double whammy – who will be left standing?

In a recent paper on the medtech outlook for Europe, UBS, looked at how Singapore and Toronto bounced back from pandemics. Pent up demand simply led to double growth rates the year after. But Covid is two things: a pandemic coupled to a steep recession, almost certainly worse than 2008. We look at what this means for a sector where private equity has often geared up to the hilt.

Exclusive prediction: Pandemic reaching turning point in Europe?

An exclusive analysis by Chinese insurance giant Ping An suggests COVID-19 cases could reach a turning point in the next few days, hitting the peak of new confirmed cases by later this week / early April,  with that figure set to fall thereafter.

Health care service write-offs drive losses at Bupa

Bupa, the global healthcare insurer and healthcare operator went from pre-tax profits of £502m in 2018 to a loss of £78m in 2019, thanks mainly to huge write-offs in its UK dentistry business and Australian care homes. But stripping out write-offs, underlying profitability still plunged 31%. Revenue rose just 4%. Why, and what does this tell us about Bupa and its future?

EIT Health starts to map data sources

Most attempts at innovation in healthcare are still being built with insufficient access to the data that defines the problem. The EU's health innovation arm, EIT Health, is calling for providers to be more data transparent for the sake of policymakers and entrepreneurs. HBI speaks to its CEO and director of innovation about curating data.

COVID-19: Threats and opportunities

Covid-19 is going to have a huge impact on for-profit healthcare services. In the first of a two-part report, we look at what that will be at a sector and country level. Digital health looks like being a winner, Ping An claims online consultations are up tenfold, with the spectre of a crash in elective procedures hanging over for-profit hospitals and specialist outpatient chains. We also look at the likely impact on M&A.  The second part of this report, focussing on the care sector, will be published next week.

Investors for Health opens door to all serious emerging market investors

All emerging market health-care investors are welcome to join Investors for Health (I4H), a newish community of 30+ investors including development banks, private equity, venture capital and impact funds. The group aims to jointly focus on private healthcare development in emerging markets with a focus on equity and alignment with universal healthcare cover. It next meets at HBI 2020, April 20-22, London. Its formation reflects a quiet revolution in the role of for-profit healthcare and its importance in bridging the World Health Organisation's estimated $686bn funding gap in low-and-middle-income countries to achieve the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal #3 (“Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages”).

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