Archetyp Links

How is it possible to spend less money on health without saving in quality?Sweden shows a way: With targeted investments in prevention, the country was able to minimize costs and diseases. It will soon be known how high the premiums for health insurance companies will increase next year.Then the question will arise once again: How can the increase in costs be stopped? Sweden could learn one thing above all: that early investments in prevention can reduce costs and illnesses.Gianluca Tognon is of this opinion.The epidemiologist lives and works in Sweden and researches public health. What does prevention mean? Prevention means acting before the disease comes.It is not just about making screening or vaccination, but also building the state of health with targeted check-ups or programs in schools.It is the opposite of running after symptoms.It means reducing hospital stays, complications and thus costs.Investing in prevention today means spending less tomorrow and living better. Explanation by Professor Tognon on prevention in Sweden: Sweden spends more money on prevention than Switzerland, Gianluca Tognon told the radio and television of Italian -speaking Switzerland (RSI).But it is not enough to spend more, you also have to control what this money does.«If we make a comparison, we see, for example, that the number of avoidable deaths in Switzerland is somewhat lower.However, if we look at the avoidable hospital stays, they are lower in Sweden. » According to Tognon, the Swedish health system is regional and is publicly financed.The family doctor is not chosen freely.There are clinics for primary prevention where general practitioners can be consulted.However, not everything is perfect in Sweden either."We have the big problem with long queues for certain therapies," reports Tognon."I work with obesity: For an obese person, it can take up to two years to look after them by a nutritionist." Legend: The more investments are made in prevention, the fewer treatments in hospitals are necessary (as here in the emergency department of the Geneva University Hospital): This shows the experience of Sweden.Keystone/Valentin Flauraud But as far as prevention is concerned, Sweden is one of the most exemplary countries in the world.It has a hundred hospitals, Switzerland 275 (with correspondingly higher costs).This lies, among other things, the different settlement structure."We have areas such as Gothenburg or Stockholm, which are densely populated and where there are more hospitals," explains Tognon."But there are areas where it would be unthinkable to have so many hospitals because the population density is very low, for example in the north or in the central part of Sweden.» Discuss with: Above all, however, the lower density of hospitals is a result of health policy: "It has deliberately decided not to have as many hospitals because you wanted to invest in prevention before the hospital stay takes place," emphasizes Tognon.Switzerland can “copy” these points from Sweden: Politics to increase screenings (around 80 percent of women in Sweden make breast cancer screenings compared to around 50 percent of the Swiss) The system of school nurse (for prevention with young people and teachers) According to the professor, both Swiss and the Swedish system are awarded.In many ways, both transfer the average of all OECD countries.