From Volume To Value: A Shared Commitment For Better Healthcare – Oped

Key Takeaways

• Healthcare systems in Europe and Asia face shared pressures—ageing populations, chronic diseases, workforce shortages and rising expectations—causing needs to outpace available resources, requiring a shift from simply providing more care to delivering greater value. 
• Traditional volume-based metrics (beds, consultations, procedures) must give way to value-oriented measures such as clinical outcomes, access speed, patient experience, quality of life and efficient resource use. 
• Private hospitals should act as strategic partners rather than mere capacity providers, integrating prevention, outpatient and chronic-care models, digital tools and AI, while advocating for fair, incentive-aligned financing that rewards value creation across public and private providers.

Healthcare systems across the world are facing unprecedented pressure. Europe and Asia have different histories, financing models and demographic realities, but the challenges we face are increasingly similar: ageing populations, the rise of chronic and non-communicable diseases, shortages of healthcare professionals, growing expectations from citizens and the rapid development of medical and digital innovation.

All these trends have one consequence: healthcare needs are growing faster than the resources available to meet them. The question is therefore no longer simply how to provide more healthcare but how how to make the most of all the system’s ressources, how to provide better healthcare and create greater value for every patient and for society.

For decades, healthcare systems have largely measured performance through volume: beds, consultations, procedures, admissions or treatments. These indicators remain important, particularly where access to care is insufficient. But volume alone cannot define success.

We need to move from measuring activity to measuring value: better clinical outcomes, faster access, improved patient experience, greater quality of life and a more efficient use of resources.

Private hospitals have an important responsibility in this transformation.

Across Europe and Asia, private providers represent a significant part of healthcare capacity. They invest in infrastructure, technology and innovation, employ thousands of healthcare professionals and contribute to training, research and the introduction of new models of care.

Their role, however, should go beyond providing additional capacity. Private hospitals must become strategic partners in building more accessible, innovative and sustainable healthcare systems.

The relevant question should not be who owns a hospital, but whether the care it provides is accessible, safe, effective, patient-centred and efficient. Public and private capacity should be mobilised according to the needs of patients.

This also requires a change in the way we think about hospitals. The future cannot be based exclusively on treating episodes of illness. Prevention, early diagnosis, outpatient care, rehabilitation, remote monitoring and management of chronic disease must become part of a continuous patient journey.

Digitalisation and artificial intelligence can accelerate this transformation, allowing us to identify risks earlier, support clinical decisions, personalise treatment and enable healthcare professionals to dedicate more time to patients.

Financing must evolve as well. Funding systems must be fair, transparent and efficient. No discrimination between providers is acceptable when we are all contributing to the same mission; we must be aware that the funding model contributes to efficiency and quality and must provide the right incentives.

Our ambition should therefore be to align patients, providers and payers around the creation of health value.

As representatives of private hospitals in Europe and Asia, we believe our sector should embrace a common ambition: to measure our contribution not simply by how many patients we treat, but by the value we create for them.

We must transform volume into value, innovation into better outcomes, capacity into access and cooperation into better health.

Private hospitals are ready to be part of that transformation — and to help lead it.