[Activity Report] Health Policy Summit 2018

date : 2/24/2018

Health and Global Policy Institute held the Health Policy Summit 2018 on Saturday 24, 2018 in Tokyo.

At the summit, we held deep and lively discussions on future plans and visions related to the four areas of “healthcare provision systems,” “insurer functions,” “national health insurance,” and the “future of healthcare,” as well as other urgent issues.

Keynote Address

Katsunobu Kato (Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare)

Mr. Kato talked about Japanese social security measures, and focused on the necessary reforms of medical and nursing care by year 2025, as Japan faces the challenge of a declining population. He gave his thoughts on urgent issues such as work style reforms for doctors, the drastic reform of the drug price system, and efforts expended on data health reform and cancer genome medical care, as well as the prospects for realizing higher quality medical treatment by utilizing new technologies.

Session 1: “The Way Forward for the Healthcare Service Provision Systems and Strengthening of Insurer Functions”

There has been a growing attention on the role of community healthcare and work patterns of medical professionals, with expectations for multi-stakeholder discussions on a number of topics including family doctor and specialist systems. Recent changes in medical practice, including the use of ICTs, have led to the need for redefining and rebuilding the healthcare system itself. Furthermore, the strengthening of insurer functions is in progress and aims at reinforcing their financial basis, management capacity and active involvement in healthcare policies, starting with the transferring of the national health insurance management authority from the state to prefectures from FY 2018. In this context, the following were discussed in Session 1: how the policy supports the use of new technologies; what elements are needed to improve the efficiency and quality of service provision systems; what the roles of insurers are; what the best system is to provide efficient services to the users. Based upon these discussions, agreements were reached and future visions identified.

Panelists:

Kenji Shuto (Vice Governor of Kanagawa Prefecture)

Toshihiko Suzuki (Director General of Health Insurance Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare(MHLW))

Shuji Shirakawa (Vice President of the National Federation of Health Insurance Societies (Kenporen))

Moderator:

Manami Takamatsu (Manager, HGPI)

Session 2: Special Dialogue to Discuss “Sustainable Healthcare Systems” with Dr Yokokura, President of Japan Medical Association

How can we balance sustainability of Japan’s unique healthcare systems with evaluation of newly emerging innovations? What is the best way forward for medicine and healthcare professionals? In this session, we heard the insights of Dr Yokokura who has a significant influence on the healthcare sector in Japan, through a 90-minute interview which included his personal stories. Through dialogue and interaction with the audience, we reviewed recent challenges and discussed the way forward for our future healthcare.

Guest:

Yoshitake Yokokura (President, Japan Medical Association/ President, World Medical Association)

Interviewer:

Kohei Onozaki (Board Member, HGPI)

Session 3 “The Future of Healthcare”

Development of new diagnostic technologies using artificial intelligence (AI) as well as innovations with big data have been promoted globally in various fields including healthcare. If we looked at cases in different countries, we would find that approaches that make of use of various devices to collect chronic disease data from patients to undertake early interventions and tailor-made support on the ground level were already available. Some domestic inventions are progressively being disseminated to other countries. Furthermore, the rapid progress of AI and diagnostic technologies is expected to significantly improve the quality and efficiency of healthcare. In this regard, with the rapid changes in the field of healthcare, what kind of vision does Japan need to establish and how can policy support and guide the achievement of such a vision in the future? In Session 3, we discussed in depth specific good practices and the next steps while engaging with experts from the public and private sectors, as well as academia.

Panelists:

Yoshihide Esaki (Deputy Director-General for Healthcare and Medical Policy, Commerce and Service Policy Group, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry & Cabinet Secretariat, Government of Japan)

Yuki Shimahara (CEO, LPixel Inc.)

Hiroaki Miyata (Professor, Department of Health Policy and Management, School of Medicine, Keio University)

Moderator: