Invest in diagnostics to win the health fight

Health is not only a human right but also a driving force for economic and social progress. It is a universal truth that good health and education are essential for personal well-being, societal stability, and national prosperity. Yet millions still lack access to affordable, high-quality care, making it imperative to find sustainable ways to help people live healthier lives. A key priority is tackling noncommunicable diseases, or NCDs, such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, dementia, and cancer, which place an increasing burden on communities worldwide.

Three in 4 deaths are due to NCDs, and every two seconds, someone under the age of 70 dies from an NCD. By 2030, these conditions are projected to claim 52 million lives annually. While the world faces political, demographic, economic, and environmental challenges, we are losing the fundamental fight against chronic illness. Why? Because health systems are almost “flying blind” if they lack the means to detect, treat, or monitor NCDs effectively.

Diagnostics: The foundation of effective care

You can only manage what you can measure. Diagnostics, such as a blood test or an ultrasound exam, are the tools that inform patients and providers if a disease or condition is present in the body. Essential to the infrastructure of modern health, diagnostics remain marginalized in global policy. Nearly 50% of the global population has little to no access to diagnostics, while there are substantial shortages of diagnostic imaging equipment and personnel, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, as well as notable disparities within high-income countries. These are critical for diagnosing a wide range of conditions, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Stark disparities in diagnostics access exist not only between high- and low-income countries but also within health care systems, contributing directly to preventable deaths and disabilities.

The dividend on diagnostics investment is impressive. A mere 3%-5% of health care spending worldwide informs nearly 70% of clinical decisions, which may prevent up to 80% of harm caused by delayed or inaccurate diagnosis.

Diagnostic tools such as medical imaging and in-vitro diagnostics, or IVD, confirm diagnoses and inform treatment. They are fundamental for early intervention: Imagine the difference between an emergency heart procedure and a scheduled, timely intervention guided by predictive imaging.

Similarly, meeting patients where they are with point-of-care testing in primary settings enables practitioners to identify conditions such as prediabetes or hypertension years before they become catastrophic. For instance, a simple A1C blood test during a routine primary care visit can detect prediabetes — a condition affecting over 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. — allowing for lifestyle interventions that can prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes and its complications, including cardiovascular disease, kidney failure, and vision loss.

But in health systems strained to capacity, accurate diagnostics have broader implications too. Strategic investment and ensuring accuracy in diagnostics could save up to 18% of health care expenses — a figure that frees up much-needed resources to treat other pressing health care needs, including investing in the treatment infrastructure for these diagnosed needs. Beyond minimizing waste, there are clear economic returns. In oncology, for example, targeted imaging yields an estimated $32 return for every $1 invested.

Closing the gap: Equity and innovation

Diagnostics continue to innovate at an unprecedented pace. Advanced automation and blood-based biomarkers are making it possible to personalize complex treatments and manage diseases such as Alzheimer’s without relying on invasive, expensive procedures. Portable, AI-enabled medical imaging, remote monitoring systems, and teleradiology networks are transforming health care delivery — particularly in underserved regions — while improving diagnostic accuracy and workflow efficiency. These technologies can scale expertise across borders, bridge workforce gaps, and support less-experienced providers in delivering expert-level care.

Proven efficacy and cost-effectiveness make diagnostics a most compelling area for critical investment, allowing public, private, and philanthropic partners to share risk and rapidly scale the next generation of solutions. Advocacy is needed to make policymakers, medical professionals, and other stakeholders realize the added value of a good diagnostic system — values that are largely invisible in current debates. To ensure equitable access, technical guidance from the World Health Organization can play a critical role in rolling out diagnostics in LMICs.

The United Nations’ recent draft political declaration on NCDs sets ambitious targets that cannot be achieved without investment in diagnostic systems. While the declaration acknowledges diagnostics, that is only a first step. We must transform this policy framework into concerted national action. To do so, we propose three pivotal and mutually reinforcing steps.

1. Build tiered, resilient delivery networks and decentralize access

Access to health is local. We must move beyond the centralized hospital model and adopt a tiered system that connects high-throughput central laboratories with integrated networks of point-of-care technology and mobile imaging units. This means equipping local care centers with essential, resilient tools, including AI-enabled, portable technologies, and building well-functioning referral systems to specialist care. This approach ensures continuity and resilience and would be able to increase reach to nearly half of the global population who currently have little or no access to diagnostics.

2. Prioritize, fund, and train the diagnostic workforce, from engineer to specialist

The best equipment and latest technologies cannot deliver their full potential without the humans needed to operate them. We must address the workforce crisis in pathology, laboratory medicine, radiology, and biomedical engineering. Sustained investment in national training pipelines and task-shifting is as vital as the equipment itself.

Digital tools and connected, AI-enabled training platforms can accelerate this effort by providing remote learning, simulation-based skill development, and real-time guidance. These innovations not only expand access to education but also help less-experienced providers deliver expert-level care, ensuring that advanced technologies are used effectively and consistently across diverse health care settings.

3. Ensure diagnostic systems are a foundational investment

The investment case for effective diagnostic systems is clear. If used wisely, diagnostics will increase outcomes of treatment and prevent unnecessary downstream costs. Many compelling investment cases do exist in this specific area of the broader health care system. We must convert this into a strategic funding mandate.

Policymakers must advocate for dedicated, nonnegotiable health spending toward an effective diagnostic infrastructure. This financial commitment is required to ensure the system reaches as many people as possible, as early as possible, by embedding diagnostics as an essential enabling asset within public and private health insurance schemes to enable universal health coverage, or UHC. This strategic shift is how we build resilient, high-impact diagnostic systems, not just purchase temporary equipment.

By bringing these actions to life across the globe, we can move diagnostic systems from the periphery to the heart of the health system.

There is now a global consensus that investing in diagnostics and medical imaging is critical to achieving UHC and improving health outcomes for both communicable and NCDs. The speed of innovation in diagnostics is accelerating at an incredible pace, fueled by the transformative power of AI — giving clinicians increased clarity, patients more confidence, and opening up the future of health care delivery into a landscape of unprecedented possibility.

Now is the time to convert political commitment into capital, ensuring diagnostics are prioritized as a foundational component of human health. By forging partnerships and embedding diagnostics at the heart of health systems, we can promise that no patient, regardless of where they live, is ever denied the fundamental right to know.

Philips, Roche, and the WHO Foundation are members of the Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resilience, or PHSSR — a nonprofit, global coalition with a shared goal to improve global health. Learn more about the PHSSR's new global NCD Policy Roadmap here.