Conference Trends in Healthcare – Challenges and Opportunities

The American Chamber of Commerce in Croatia held the 5th edition of the conference on healthcare, which brought together 180 key stakeholders from the healthcare sector on March 26, 2024 in Zagreb.

The focus of AmCham's conference was on sustainable healthcare financing, monitoring of treatment outcomes, reforms of EU legislation on medicines and joint public procurement in healthcare. A special focus is placed on digitalization, i.e. how data and new technologies can affect a better and more reliable healthcare service for patients.

AmCham supports the reforms being implemented in the field of healthcare and constructively proposes measures aimed at stability and quality of the healthcare system. Healthcare systems that strive for quality and cost efficiency are focused on the quality of patient treatment outcomes. "AmCham welcomes the efforts of the Ministry of Health to initiate the process of monitoring treatment outcomes, but also points to the importance of monitoring the entire path of patients from suspected disease to the end of treatment, the importance of forming centers of excellence for individual diseases, educating the general population about prevention", said Andrea Doko Jelušić, Executive Director of AmCham Croatia.

Rina Musić, AmCham President of the Board of Governors, pointed out the results of the 2021 IQVIA survey, which showed that despite some good examples, Croatia does not have sufficiently developed digital health solutions - the development score was less than 2 on a scale of 5, while the highest levels of digital maturity in healthcare reached Estonia, England, Sweden and Denmark. "Measuring outcomes and using data are key to the successful digital transformation of healthcare in Croatia," said Rina Musić, AmCham President of the Board of Governors.

In the introductory part of the conference, Ana Gongola, Country Head Croatia at Sandoz, presented the opportunities brought by generic and biosimilar medicines, stressing that the availability of generic medicines is crucial for the sustainability of the healthcare system because for only 8% of the budget 68% of therapies are provided, and last year 91 million boxes of medicines were provided for Croatian patients with savings of EUR 30 million over the last two years.

Sandra Velasco, Country President Adriatics at Novartis, presented the possibilities of the International Center of Excellence in the Clinical Hospital Center, which would open opportunities for the medicine of the future that includes personalized approaches, cell and gene therapies, immunotherapy and the development of radiopharmaceuticals as a whole new concept of treatment in oncology. She pointed out that Croatia, as a regional leader in the Centers of Excellence, has made significant progress in the last ten years, and for the solutions that are yet to come, timely planning of resources is necessary.

The value of data in oncology was discussed by Mark J. Davis, General Manager at Roche. At the conference, it was once again possible to hear that the estimated incidence of cancer in Croatia is close to the EU average, but we record the second highest mortality from cancer among EU countries, especially lung and colon cancer. The establishment of a Croatian oncology database is one of the key components that will enable meaningful insights into healthcare data designed to improve patient care.

The panel discussion "Croatia on the Path of Healthcare Excellence" was attended by Martina Bogut Barić, Chief Advisor to the Minister of Health; Sandra Velasco, Country President Adriatics, Novartis; Antonia Filipović, Head of Employee Benefits, Assistant Vice President, Marsh McLennan Croatia; Ivan Bumber, Policy & Public Affairs Lead Adriatic, Pfizer and Nikolina Škaron, Government Affairs & Market Access Manager, AstraZeneca. Through continuous reforms, Croatia strives to respond to the challenges of accessibility and sustainability of the healthcare system, reform primary healthcare, ensure the supply of medicines and improve treatment outcomes.

The second panel discussion "Data and Technology Driven Healthcare“ was attended by Tomislav Sokol, PhD, Member of the European Parliament; Jelena Curać, Assistant Director for IT, Croatian Health Insurance Fund; Boris Lukovnjak, Patient Journey Partner Lead, Roche; Mirela Horvat Kiš, Policy and Communication Lead Croatia, MSD and Dunja Maronić Filaković, Market Access Lead Adriatic, Abbvie. Participants agreed that significant advances in healthcare be achieved through the structured use of data, which would benefit both patients and healthcare professionals, but also the state through system optimization.