Remote hospital care is prospering in the pandemic

People in Europe are living longer and European societies are getting older and an ageing population has to deal with a rise in chronic diseases. As a result, existing hospital capacity is often insufficient to meet the rising demand and healthcare costs are under continuous upward pressure.

New medical techniques are an interesting part of the healthcare puzzle: they can improve quality, but often entail high costs. The billion-dollar question is: can they slow cost growth and increase healthcare capacity and quality at the same cost?

As the largest cost in healthcare, hospitals are an expensive place to provide care. Regulators, therefore, encourage the use of technology that enables more care to be provided more outside the hospital.

The Covid-19 crisis has clearly spurred things on for technology-assisted remote hospital care, but to what extent? Did the crisis create a ‘new way of working’ or will things quickly return to (the old) normal after the pandemic?

In this report, we try to shed light on the strengths, weaknesses and potentials of remote hospital care and the ways different stakeholders can accelerate its implementation in Europe.