Digital Technology and Efficiency Gains in Healthcare Infrastructural Investments

Background: Healthcare investments represent a central infrastructure with growing sustainability issues, due to the aging population, public budgetary pressures, and higher quality standards. Public providers of healthcare services increasingly interact with experienced private suppliers. They share Value for Money (VfM), to achieve efficiency gains through an optimal combination of benefits and costs. Innovative solutions are so needed, as they combine the target of increasing healthcare quality with economic savings. Objectives: To analyze the economic benefit of digitalization and indicate how the value-adding “pie” can be shared between the public, the private, and the patients. To show that achievements due to digitalization are financially sustainable, consistently with public capital rationing concerns. Methodology: A critical analysis of the VfM parameter is conducted to understand how the public and private interests can converge. Digital platforms are a core feature of the technological upgrades, and their incremental impact on value creation is investigated with a cost-benefit sensitivity analysis. Findings: If technological advances produce savings, investments may be remunerated with Pay-for-Performance incentives. Digital platforms add value to the whole ecosystem, linking the stakeholders together in real-time, and favoring data sharing. Digital patterns also favor social distancing, so crucial during pandemics. This study goes beyond the extant literature, considering the public-private sharing patterns of technological expertise. Conclusions: Digitalization, through transmission and sharing of (big) data, involves traditionally forgotten stakeholders, represented by patients. This ignites a paradigm shift easing a patient-centric outlook consistent with the trendy expectations of the healthcare industry.