Nordic Health 2030 Process Summary

EHiN will use the report Nordic Healthcare 2030 – A shared agenda on sustainable health inspired by leading decision makers across the Nordic region as inspiration and guideline for parts of the program. Here is a short summary.

In spring 2019, the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies led the Nordic Health 2030 Process, a series of workshops held across the Nordic region that aimed to explore and shape the future of healthcare. Thirty experts representing the private and public sectors in the Nordic countries participated in the process, making a commitment to revolutionise healthcare by shifting the healthcare paradigm from sick care to preventive health.

In living up to this commitment, the participants in collaboration with the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies have developed and proposed several robust and sustainable solutions for healthcare that build on the unique strengths and capabilities of the Nordic countries. Aiming to improve healthcare on an individual, institutional and systemic level, these solutions are founded on a set of values and principles that emphasise fundamental aspects of life, culture, and society shared among the Nordics.

Self-cultivation of health

In recognising the importance of citizen engagement in improving healthcare, the Nordic Health 2030 participants have also developed a consensus on a core concept for driving the transition to preventive health on an individual level. This concept is called the self-cultivation of health and is defined as a lifelong learning approach to cultivate preventive health behaviours and values rooted in an innate sense of responsibility to oneself and one’s community.

The 5/5 Aspiration

On the institutional level, the Nordic Health 2030 process participants identified the need for more balanced health expenditure with a renewed focus on prevention. Healthcare spending in the Nordics today focuses almost exclusively on treatment, with the Nordic countries spending just 0.3% of their GDP preventive health services. The Nordic Health 2030 participants have proposed the 5/5 Aspiration as a solution. The 5/5 Aspiration proposes that by 2030, the Nordic countries should allocate 5% of the GDP to treatment and 5% of the GDP to primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention.

The sustainable health model

The Nordic Health 2030 process also motivated participants to think critically about what kinds of conditions and actions would enable the transition from sick care to preventive health on a systemic level. This resulted in the sustainable health model. At its core the model illustrates a proposed framework for relationships between key stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem. The framework aims to prevent the lock-in of data between stakeholders, which participants identified as a significant obstacle to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of healthcare in the Nordic countries.

The humanome – a personalised point of care data concept

Finally, the Nordic Health 2030 process has highlighted how the Nordic countries can leverage their robust technological and infrastructural capabilities to develop data-driven personalised healthcare solutions. This is illustrated by the humanome, a hypothetical data concept that places the individual in the centre of a data-driven healthcare ecosystem. The humanome demonstrates how all kinds of health and health-relevant data can be shared, analysed, combined by various actors in the healthcare ecosystem to generate insights that improve health systems’ performance and qualifies individuals to make informed decisions regarding their health.

Interested people can get a copy through nard@ehin.no, download the magazine from https://www.nordicinnovation.org/2019/nordic-health-2030-magazine