The healthcare consulting business has witnessed rapid growth in recent years as increased access to health coverage and the development of new technologies have resulted in new challenges for healthcare providers and pharmaceutical companies.

KPMG Healthcare is one of the leading global professional consulting companies that provide a range of services to global healthcare organizations, healthcare providers, payers, and life sciences companies.

In detail, KPMG Healthcare’s consulting services include strategic planning, digital transformation, regulatory and compliance, financial management, operations and technology, and risk management, to help clients drive growth, improve efficiency, and enhance patient care.

Korea Biomedical Review sat down with Dr. Anna van Poucke, Global Head of Healthcare at KPMG International to gain a closer insight into what kind of services the company provides and the challenges that the global healthcare industry faces.

Before joining KPMG, Van Poucke accumulated an extensive experience in the healthcare sector at a senior level in a range of hospitals and mental healthcare institutions, and also as CEO of the Dutch Diagnosis Related-Groups (DRGs) and Tariffing office.

She joined KPMG as the head of healthcare for the KPMG in Netherlands, before moving up to the global head of healthcare in 2020.

The Dutch leader decided to join KPMG because the job seemed intellectually challenging.

"Thinking about new solutions for your client being very agile is very exciting and never boring," Van Poucke said. “Working with KMPG allows me to act at a very high level and participate in large and impactful projects to crack the important issues facing the global healthcare industry.”

According to Van Poucke, one of the key areas that KPMG Healthcare focuses on is strategic planning and business transformation.

"The firm helps healthcare organizations develop and implement strategies that align with their goals and objectives and assists with, digital transformation, mergers and acquisitions, and restructuring," she said. “All aimed at helping the healthcare industry to face the challenges of the future.”

Notably, Van Poucke has recently been traveling to KPMG member firms in the Asia region, including Korea, Japan, and Australia, to help coordinate with local staff and come up with new solutions to help healthcare providers better.

How is Asia faring in healthcare?

When asked how the Asian market, including Korea, compares to the European market in terms of healthcare system effectiveness, digital transformation, and drug access, Van Poucke stressed that the healthcare industry is currently facing similar problems, such as the aging population and the shortage of workforce, no matter the region.

"When I first started my job, I conducted a survey on healthcare CEOs worldwide, including Australia, China, Saudi Arabia, Germany, the Netherlands, the U.K., the U.S., and Canada, to figure out what problems they were facing," Van Poucke said. "Remarkably, although there were marginal differences, the struggles and issues these CEOs were facing were very comparable."

However, Van Poucke stressed that there is a difference between higher-income countries and lower- and middle-income countries.

While lower-income countries are focused on building universal health coverage and increasing health accessibility, high-income countries are struggling with the population aging and the shortage of healthcare professionals, she noted.

Korea and Japan, in particular, need to address the problem of long hospital stays and few general practitioners, in comparison to Western countries, she added. However, the development of digital innovations and potential for digital transformation in Korea and Japan are at the forefront. With remarkably much collaboration between public and private companies.

Van Poucke noted that she has already discussed with several key stakeholders in both countries about having to start training more doctors, especially general practitioners (GPs) and scaling up of and building a primary care platform to take the stress away from the hospitals and move healthcare to the community.

"While such a trend is also happening in Western countries, the need for it in Korea and Japan is stronger," she said.

Van Poucke also stressed that albeit Korea is developing very promising digital solutions, there seems to be a low trust and willingness to allow digital solutions, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to be used in the field.

"Digital transformation is one of the key solutions to resolve the workforce shortage and workforce burnout, and I think Korea needs to move in that direction as well because otherwise, you are going to create a healthcare system that cannot guarantee accessibility of care anymore."

The good news, however, is that there are some exciting developments in the digital healthcare space in Korea, especially around the use of AI.

However, if Korea doesn't allow the regulation and reimbursement for such digital transformation, developers of innovative AI platforms will see a limit “very soon,” she warned.

For the digital transformation to gain momentum in Korea, Van Poucke said that it is important to get healthcare providers, especially physicians, involved.

“Doctors have a social responsibility, and they need to think, are we going to keep our healthcare system accessible and equitable?"

This means that they will have to open up to the digital transformation. They can't just hide away from it as the public will only trust the digital solutions as if they, as doctors, trust them, she added.

Covid-19, not a black swan event for healthcare industry

During the interview, the global head of KPMG Health also mentioned how the healthcare industry has rapidly changed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"While the pandemic was a huge crisis, the pandemic did show us the underlying cracks in our healthcare systems that are endangering the sustainability of the system," she said.

Van Poucke also noted that the healthcare industrial changes were accelerating, rather than slowing, even when the pandemic was turning into an endemic.

"We're going to see more pandemics, a global recession, problems in the supply chain and mass migration due to climate change," Van Poucke said. "Therefore, the need for change is accelerating rather than diminishing."

If countries do not recognize such changes, they will face an impoverished system with limited access to healthcare, she added.

Van Poucke also emphasized that it was equally important that everyone gets involved in digital transformation.

"We don't think that technology is going to be the only solution, and if we're going to rely only on technology, if we're relying only on digital, we're going to create an alienated healthcare system which means that the digital illiterate will not be able to access healthcare," she said. "Therefore, we have to combine them in what we call hybrid models where we combine the virtual and the physical world."

'Everyone needs to come together to adapt to the rapid change'

While Van Poucke stressed that healthcare companies should not revert to business as usual and embrace the new normal, she acknowledged the difficulties that healthcare companies are facing.

Notably, many multinational pharmaceutical companies are conducting layoffs and cutting down costs to improve financial stability as a global recession is looming.

Healthcare providers still need help to address the shortage of human resources and workforce burnout. 

"It's a little bit like renovating a ship while in a huge storm," Van Poucke said. "It is not very easy, but also it's something that cannot be postponed. However, we can't expect healthcare organizations to do it alone."

Healthcare institutions cannot manage day-to-day problems with not enough nurses, not enough staff, not enough money, and at the same time, redesign their whole business, she added.

Van Poucke noted that healthcare providers are not financially prosperous to invest much and make such changes, so governments and health-insurers should “take more responsibility.”

For example, public and private partnerships can be part of the solution, she suggested.

"We're positively impressed by all these life sciences companies but also insurance companies and also big tech companies who want to jump in to help," she said. "cooperation between the healthcare industry and these industries can really help to realize the needed transformation, but If we don't cooperate we fear the needed change will be a very tough, transformational journey."

She emphasized that healthcare providers or pharmaceutical firms need a long-term vision and KPMG can help achieve that goal because it works with many tech firms, life science companies, healthcare providers, and governments.

For example, she said that KPMG Korea has been working with drugmakers and life science firms to redesign their operational processes, cut operation costs, and adopt a more effective system.

'Recession won't affect healthcare growth'

When asked about the healthcare industry growth outlook for next year, Van Poucke stressed that an economic recession would only help boost the growth of the healthcare industry.

"You can't suppress growth in healthcare because health and health conditions are not very recession based," she said. "People might decide not to go out to a restaurant or not to buy a new vacuum cleaner during a recession, but no one is going to say that they are not going to have a hip replacement surgery because of a recession."

The reverse is true, a recession normally leads to more healthcare problems.

Healthcare is normally a very anti-cyclical sector and the industry will grow further backed by the aging population, she said.

"The growth of the healthcare industry will only slow down by a lack of supply, rather than by lack of demand."

Van Poucke also expressed a positive outlook for the healthcare consultancy market.

"Market analysis shows that healthcare is going to be one of the fastest growing sectors in the consultancy industry," she said. "Such analysis is also reflected in our ambition, and we believe three factors will affect the KPMG Healthcare team's growth target."

The first being the growth of the healthcare sector in itself, second the immense need for transformation in the sector, and thirdly our own KPMG performance in the market, helping all our clients in the transformation.