Japan. The land of anime — hand-drawn or computer animations, a technological superpower with a staggering gross government debt. It accounted for 219% of GDP in 2016. The long-lasting trend of worsening fiscal situation in Japan continues alongside the increases in health and pension spending linked to population aging which puts the upward pressure on government debt.

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If this is not very inspiring a lot of others specifics in the Japanese society are admired by western countries. For example unbeatable longevity. Japan is no. 1 in the world when it comes to life expectancy at birth: the average life expectancy is 83.9 years, 87.1 for women, 80.8 for men.

The aging population requires new policies and political measurements to prevent economic collapse. According to the OECD Health Statistics 2016, Japan’s total health spending accounted for 11.2 percent of its GDP in 2015, ranking third out of 35 OECD members. Only the U.S. and Switzerland spend more.

Japan rose to the third spot in the ranking because nursing care was previously not included in the statistics. In 2000, a separate insurance program was launched as part of its health care costs.

Robots

Japanese culture differs from Western societies on many levels. One thing is the attitude toward robots. If the first association in the Western culture is the terminators, the Japanese see robots as artificial humans. Kind and friendly. Robots are not only developed to ease manufacturing but to address different aspects of elderly care — from rehabilitation, lifting to mental health support.

In this episode of Medicine Today on Digital Health Podcast two speakers share their insight — Kyoko Watanabe — a digital health investor from Defta Partners — a leading venture capital firm focusing on innovative technologies in IT and healthcare and Yuuri Ueda, MD and Director of Health 2.0 Asia — Japan.

Some questions addressed in the episode:

• What is the general attitude towards health in Japan?

• What is the attitude towards the quantified self?

• How is elderly care managed?

• Where does the different perception of robots come from?

• Why is it difficult to enter the Japanese Medtech market?