APO WEBINAR | How does the Thai health system achieve health and equitable outcomes at a lower cost?

15 April 2025
News release
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📅 Date: 30 April 2025 (Wednesday)

⏰ Time: 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM Manila Time (UTC+8)

🔗 Registration Link: https://bit.ly/apowebinar-thaihealth

 

The Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (APO) invites you to a 90-minute webinar examining Thai health system's cost effectiveness in its achievement of universal health coverage (UHC). 

 

OVERVIEW

As countries across Asia work toward UHC with funding and resource constraints, Thailand offers a compelling case for how improved health outcomes can be achieved at lower cost through public financing and system-wide reform.

In 2002, Thailand achieved UHC through three public insurance schemes: the Civil Servant Medical Benefit Scheme for civil servants and their dependents, the Social Health Insurance Scheme for formal sector employees and the Universal Coverage Scheme for the rest of the population. This shifted the country’s health financing landscape to rely primarily on public expenditure from the previous dependence on private spending.

While this model has improved access and equity, it now faces mounting cost pressures from an ageing population, rising non-communicable and chronic diseases, advanced medical technologies and slow economic growth—factors that test the system’s long-term sustainability.

This webinar draws from APO's 2024 Thailand Health Systems in Transition (HiT) Review, which provides a comprehensive assessment of financial protection, equity in financing, health outcomes, quality of care, system efficiency, transparency and accountability.

Over the course of 90 minutes, the webinar will examine how Thailand has navigated these challenges—and what lessons can guide other countries in building inclusive, cost-effective and resilient health systems.

OUR PANEL

📢Speaker:

  • Dr Viroj Tangcharoensathien | Senior Advisor, International Health Policy Program, Thailand

📢Discussants:

  • Dr Indu Bhushan | Independent Director, Apollo Healthco; Former CEO, Ayushman Bharat
  • Dr Somil Nagpal | Lead Health Specialist, The World Bank
  • Professor Barbara McPake | Former Director, Nossal Institute for Global Health, University of Melbourne 
  • Mr Lluis Vinals Torres | Director, Division of Health Systems and Services, World Health Organization Regional Office for the Western Pacific

🎙Moderator:

AGENDA 

 

  • Introduction (5 minutes) of APO, Thailand HiT publication and speakers
  • Presentation (25 minutes) of the Health System Review and assessment 
  • Panel discussion (45 minutes) on lessons and key challenges from Thailand HiT
  • Q&A session (15 minutes) with participants to further explore how lessons from Thailand can be applied or adapted to other contexts in the Asia Pacific. 


Join us as we explore one of Asia's most notable examples of universal health coverage (#UHC) and what other countries can learn from it. 

Register Now: https://bit.ly/apowebinar-thaihealth