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Strengthening health systems through collaboration and innovation

Last month Philips and the ICRC jointly hosted a Health Care Dinner at the WEF Annual Meeting 2015 in Davos, Switzerland. An event where 24 international key opinion leaders in health care around the world were present, sharing their thoughts on the topic “strengthening health systems through collaboration and innovation”.

Visual from the dinner discussion hosted by the International Red Cross and Philips.

 

The Red Cross (led by the ICRC and the Netherlands Red Cross) and the Philips Foundation  have announced a global innovation partnership. This partnership will focus on exploring innovations and technology that could assist in providing relief to people affected by humanitarian crises.

Key areas of cooperation include healthcare and energy solutions. Insights from the discussion included 

  • Today, the lack of well-educated, healthcare professionals is a huge problem, particularly in low income countries, where health workers leave to find better paid jobs elsewhere. There is need for communities in these areas, and organizations working in such communities, to strengthen their expertise around health and healthcare systems.

  •  Too often the discussion around healthcare in low-income countries is left to experts, and the local communities are left aside, when they are central to the discussion.

  • In an interconnected world, health risks are not isolated and no country is immune, as we have recently seen with Ebola. Fragile contexts cannot be left behind, and doing so would pose high risks and high costs for entire regions.

We are proud to partner with worldwide leading companies and organisations, like the Philips Foundation, to save and improve the lives of people affected by conflict and armed violence. There is tremendous potential for innovative companies to become pioneers in the area of partnership with us  and to provide support for our operations worldwide.