What if the biggest opportunity in healthcare isn’t more funding – but fewer inefficiencies?

By Fiona Garín Mc Donagh, VP Strategic Marketing, BD EMEA

What does sustainable healthcare really mean, not just for our planet, but for the people who deliver and receive care every day?

Too often, sustainability is viewed only through the lens of environmental impact.

While reducing carbon emissions and medical waste is of course critical, we also need to look inward at how we design, manage, and deliver healthcare.

A truly sustainable healthcare system must be efficient, adaptable, and capable of delivering high-quality care today, while being prepared to meet the demands of the future.

In a time when governments across Europe are being redirecting funding toward defense and security, the question we must urgently ask is: how do we protect the healthcare systems we’ve spent decades building with pride?

The answer lies not in doing more with more – but in doing better with what we have.

Every inefficiency we tolerate – every delayed discharge, duplicated test, or underused skill – is a missed opportunity to care for someone in need.

With ageing populations, rising chronic disease, and a workforce stretched to its limits, we can no longer afford to let inefficiencies quietly erode the quality of care.

This is our moment to act – not just to preserve what we have, but to reimagine how we deliver care with purpose, precision, and compassion.

Efficiency: more than just cost cutting 

Efficiency in healthcare is often misunderstood as simply cutting costs or squeezing more out of already overstretched systems. But true efficiency is about maximising value – for patients, providers, and the system as a whole.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), up to 20 per cent of health spending contributes little or nothing to improved health outcomes.

That’s not just waste – it’s a massive opportunity to redirect resources toward better care, shorter wait times, and meaningful innovation.

Across Europe, inefficiencies are hiding in plain sight: Delayed discharges due to poor coordination, underused operating theatres and late starts, excessive wait times in emergency departments, repeat diagnostic tests from lost or mishandled samples, unnecessary hospital admissions that could be managed in the community, highly trained clinicians doing admin work instead of patient care, paper-based referrals and prescriptions in a digital age, IT systems that don’t talk to each other blocking care, slow adoption of proven innovations, and many more.

Take something as routine as a blood test. If best practice in sample collection isn’t followed, the likelihood of needing a repeat test increase.

Something we can all relate to. It wastes time, drains resources, and chips away at patient trust.

Now imagine that same inefficiency repeated across thousands of hospitals, day after day.

These aren’t just operational issues – they’re barriers to better care. Tackling them isn’t about doing less. It’s about doing what matters, better.

Tackling inefficiencies in European healthcare is more important now than ever 

Inefficiencies have long been part of European healthcare, but the stakes have never been higher. Across the continent, health systems are under mounting pressure.

Europe’s population is ageing rapidly, with the number of people over 85 expected to reach nearly 27 million by 2050.

Among those over 65, one in three lives with multiple chronic conditions – already responsible for up to 80 per cent of total healthcare spending.

At the same time, we’re facing a projected shortfall of 4.1 million healthcare workers by 2030.

These challenges are not hypothetical; they’re already reshaping how we must think about care delivery.

They demand smarter, not just harder, ways of working to ensure our healthcare systems are well-equipped to keep up with the demand and ensure the timely and safe delivery of care before the system becomes too strained to recover.

MedTech innovation is no longer about what’s possible – it’s about what’s necessary

Tackling inefficiencies in healthcare can no longer fall solely on the shoulders of healthcare professionals.

The scale and complexity of today’s challenges demand a broader, more collaborative response.

From policymakers and payers to digital health startups and MedTech innovators, every actor in the healthcare ecosystem has a role to play.

MedTech, in particular, holds enormous potential – not just to support clinicians, but to transform how care is delivered, coordinated, and experienced.

It’s a strategic enabler of smarter, faster, and more sustainable care, and in today’s healthcare landscape, it is no longer a luxury – it’s a necessity.

As an example, automating administrative tasks, such as patient referrals across systems, and appointment scheduling can reduce manual tasks and administrative delays.

Such techniques are vital to enhancing operational efficiency and ensuring healthcare professionals can dedicate more time to patient-centred care.

Take pharmacists, for example.

Studies suggest that more than half of their time is spent on non-value adding work. Imagine the impact if we could return that time to clinical care?

By identifying and addressing these inefficiencies, we not only improve performance and outcomes, but we also lighten the load on our overstretched workforce.

And it’s not just the staff who benefit. Patients feel the difference too.

With integrated, connected care systems, people don’t have to keep repeating their health history every time they see a new provider. Their information travels with them.

Plus, they can access their health records in real time, which helps them stay more involved in their own care.

The end result? Faster, more coordinated treatment and a stronger connection between patients and their care teams.

Real change begins not with blame, but with curiosity. Are we asking the right questions?

In today’s healthcare landscape, one of the most powerful – and urgent – questions we must ask ourselves is:

Are we truly using our resources in the best possible way?

Too often, our instinct is to throw more people, more time, or more money at a problem.  But what if we paused and asked:

• Can we do this differently?
• Is this the best use of our people and resources?
• Can we redesign workflows, leverage technology, or collaborate more effectively?
• Are we following best practice – or just habit?

This isn’t just about large-scale transformation. Efficiency lives in the micro-decisions we make every single day.

Every inefficiency is an opportunity

Every inefficiency is an opportunity for improvement, a chance to increase capacity, alleviate burnout, enhance patient care and safety, and yes, to lessen healthcare’s environmental impact by optimising processes that contribute to carbon emissions and medical waste.

Take a moment to reflect on your own organisations.

Where are the inefficiencies hiding? What assumptions are going unchallenged? And how might a shift in mindset unlock better outcomes, for patients, for staff, and for the planet?

Meanwhile, the MedTech industry must continue to drive innovation, foster collaboration and develop practical solutions that build healthcare systems to not only be more efficient, but also more resilient and sustainable.

Together, we can transform everyday inefficiencies into meaningful progress.

Let’s start treating inefficiency as the solvable challenge it truly is.