Healthcare in Asia 2011

The 2011 Healthcare in Asia programme is currently in development. Once again the agenda will examine the pressing issues facing healthcare delivery in Asia in particular, how best the public and private sectors should work together.

The ability of Asian countries to meet the health challenges they face will depend on many things. Countries will need to understand what private organisations can best provide, and where the state is the most effective actor. They will need to develop structures, incentives, and regulations to encourage and reward innovation. And they must design a coherent, integrated system that is geared around health outcomes rather than just resource inputs. These are mammoth tasks and will never be fully complete.

What will help, however, is for the private and public sectors to keep engaging with each other and trying to understand the interplay of policy, regulation and market forces. In the coming years, The Economist Group intends to promote and be a part of this dialogue.

Healthcare in Asia 2010 speakers included:

• Khaw Boon Wan, Minister for Health, Republic of Singapore
• Dr York Chow, Secretary for Food and Health, Government of the Hong Kong SAR
• Dr Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih, Minister of Health, Republic of Indonesia
• Professor Yaung Chih-Liang, Minister of Health, Taiwan
• Thomas Chan, Deputy Secretary for Food and Health, Government of the Hong Kong SAR

• Professor Peter Sheehan, Center for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University

• Arthur Higgins, Former Chairman, Bayer HealthCare

• Shane Solomon, Chief Executive, Hong Kong Hospital Authority

• Dr Sarah Muttitt, Chief Information Officer, Ministry of Health Holdings
• Dr Martín Sepúlveda, IBM Fellow and Vice President, Integrated Health Services, IBM Corporation 
• Dr Henk Bekedam, Director of Health Sector Development Division, World Health Organisation