Pureland Venture’s Chris Hardesty: Governments must sustain long-term focus on healthcare innovation, technology

He discusses how healthcare systems in Asia Pacific need to evolve beyond simply expanding coverage and towards delivering equitable, sustainable, and high-impact care.

Amidst new waves of innovation in Asia Pacific’s healthcare industry, various organisations continue to call for the advancement of universal health coverage (UHC) as they navigate complex regulatory landscapes. In this environment, creating value hinges not just on novel technology but on thoughtful alignment with policy, provider leadership, and real-world delivery focused on translating innovation into affordable, high-impact care for the populations that need it most.

This sentiment is highlighted by Pureland Venture Partner Chris Hardesty, who is currently looking at early-stage health technology value creation opportunities in the Asia Pacific and beyond in order to bring safe and affordable medical innovations to the public. He serves various roles around the regional ecosystem, such as policy advising on UHC matters, executive hospital leadership education, and regulatory and reimbursement pathway design.

Speaking with Healthcare Asia Awards 2026 as one of its distinguished judges, Hardesty offers his perspectives on the current functions of healthcare systems, especially at the intersection of policy, innovation, and operations, as well as on the structural barriers to equitable care and the government’s role in enabling safe and scalable health technologies.

In your work advising on UHC, what do you see as the biggest policy barriers to expanding equitable access to care?

UHC was formalised through the Sustainable Development Goals, which are now approaching their 2030 endpoint. That alone forces us to start thinking about what comes after UHC, not just how we finish it. From my perspective, UHC has reached a relatively stable state. The progress achieved in expanding basic coverage across many countries is genuinely impressive. At the same time, most observers would agree that we still have not fully achieved the objective of equitable access to care.

Part of the challenge is that the target itself keeps moving. As societies evolve, disease patterns shift, and technologies advance, health systems are constantly being asked to do more. Looking forward, I see several emerging themes that create both policy barriers and opportunities. First, health systems need to adapt to a world increasingly dominated by non-communicable diseases. This requires more proactive and longitudinal models of coverage — care that extends beyond episodic treatment toward long-term disease management. Second, we need to think about deeper coverage. Many UHC schemes still focus on a relatively thin layer of essential services, but populations increasingly need access to more advanced diagnostics, treatments, and interventions aligned with these new disease paradigms. Third, we must begin to seriously explore alternative financing models. UHC has delivered significant gains, but relying on it alone will eventually reach its limits. Future health systems will require complementary financial arrangements to remain sustainable.

These issues are often framed as capacity constraints — financing pressures, workforce shortages, or misaligned time horizons — but in my view, the fundamental barrier is capability. We need more and new players at the table, additional forms of expertise, and expanded ways of thinking about health financing and delivery. Achieving equitable access in the next era of healthcare will depend less on repeating existing models and more on reimagining them for a very different future.

What role should governments play in supporting the adoption of safe, affordable medical technologies?

I continue to believe strongly in the central role of government and public health when it comes to health system design, financing, and authority. In the post-COVID-19 era, governments have taken on even greater responsibility for the performance and resilience of their health systems. That makes their role in supporting the adoption of safe and affordable medical technologies both critical and unavoidable.

One key area is fostering an environment that enables innovation. Governments can do this in several ways: through direct funding of innovation programmes within health systems, by offering training (including through collaborations with industry partners) that builds innovation capabilities amongst clinicians, administrators, and policymakers, and through in-kind support such as access to facilities, data, and — often overlooked — protected time for people to engage in innovation development activities alongside their core roles.

A second important role lies in shaping regulatory and reimbursement pathways that are fit for purpose. Patient safety must always remain paramount, but regulation and reimbursement do not need to be barriers to progress. Thoughtful approaches, such as regulatory sandboxing or adaptive reimbursement models, can allow new technologies to be tested, refined, and scaled whilst maintaining appropriate safeguards.

Finally, governments need to sustain a long-term focus on innovation and technology. This means building internal capability, providing mentorship to ecosystem stakeholders, and recognising that healthcare is inherently a long-term game. Many investments in medical technology — whether in time, funding, or institutional effort — may not pay off immediately, but they are essential if we want to deliver meaningful benefits for future generations.

What do you see as the most pressing operational challenges hospitals face today that innovation could help solve?

Hospitals are operating in a “crunched” environment on both ends. Demand continues to rise — driven by increasing patient expectations — whilst the supply side is under growing pressure from workforce constraints and tightening financing. This imbalance is creating a set of operational challenges that are becoming harder to manage through incremental change alone.

Hospitals are being forced to adapt to a new set of realities. These include shifting disease paradigms, particularly the growing burden of non-communicable diseases; the need to explore alternative funding arrangements beyond traditional public budgets; and a range of external pressures that are often beyond their direct control – geopolitics, supply chain disruptions, regulatory complexity, and even climate- and disaster-related shocks are now part of the operating context for many health systems in the region.

In response, it is increasingly important for hospitals to look inward as well as outward. Internally, this starts with a clear, coherent strategy, operating on sound “business” fundamentals — even in predominantly public-sector settings — and investing deliberately in the workforce to build resilience into the organisation itself. Innovation is not only about new technologies but also about strengthening how hospitals are managed and run (i.e., culture).

Externally, the hospitals that will succeed are those that stay well-informed on emerging trends, maximise the value of the assets they already have — both physical and digital — and continue to evolve their models through effective public-private partnerships (including with non-traditional players). These partnerships can help hospitals cross-leverage capabilities, resources, and financing, enabling them to remain operationally viable whilst responding to a far more complex and demanding environment.

What advice would you give founders operating in fragmented or resource-constrained healthcare systems?

There is a well-known saying that “necessity is the mother of innovation”, and in healthcare, some of the best ideas emerge from the most challenging environments. Resource constraints, whilst difficult, can actually force good habits. They push founders to be more creative, more disciplined, and more scrappy — qualities that are often essential in building something durable and relevant.

Fragmentation, on the other hand, is in many ways a structural reality of healthcare systems. Despite repeated efforts by even the largest and most sophisticated players, it remains an incredibly hard problem to “solve” outright. As health systems evolve, we often reduce one type of fragmentation only to create another. That said, it is also important to acknowledge the real progress that has been made, particularly in areas such as integrated care models, technology interoperability, and health information exchange.

When it comes to innovation, I often come back to a very simple idea: there are really two steps — starting and then continuing. For founders operating in fragmented and resource-constrained systems, persistence matters. The conditions are rarely ideal, and waiting for them to be so is usually a mistake.

My final piece of advice is what I think of as a “frenemies” approach. Many of the stakeholders around you — whether competitors, incumbents, or adjacent players — sit in the direct or indirect orbit of the problem you are trying to solve. Rather than viewing them purely as obstacles, look for opportunities to partner and align, where 1 + 1 = 3. In environments where resources are scarce, collaboration matters even more, and too many disconnected solutions only risk adding further fragmentation to already complex health systems.

Do you foresee APAC developing a unified approach to digital health standards or remaining fragmented, and what would the implications be for healthcare innovation and delivery?

I think we often underestimate how much progress has already been made in this area. Whilst there are still real challenges, we are living in a period where far more health data is being exchanged than ever before, and systems are increasingly able to “talk” to one another. Digital health standards and interoperability are now part of the agenda at virtually every major regional and global forum, and that sustained attention has driven meaningful advances.

From my own work and research, what I see in Asia Pacific is a reasonable degree of standardisation at the highest level — through frameworks such as HL7 — but far greater variability when it comes to local implementation. Differences emerge not only between countries but also often between health systems and even individual hospitals. This creates friction and also reflects the diversity of health system maturity, regulation, and delivery models across the region.

For that reason, I don’t see this as a binary choice between full unification and continued fragmentation. Progress will depend on ongoing dialogue, knowledge-sharing, and learning across markets. Asia Pacific’s strength lies in its diversity, and the region benefits when experiences, successes, and failures are shared rather than solved in isolation.

Ultimately, I believe the conversation needs to shift. Instead of framing the challenge around health systems alone, we should follow the patient or consumer more closely — how they move through care, across providers, and through different stages of life. If standards and digital infrastructure are designed around that journey, rather than institutional boundaries, we are far more likely to enable innovation and deliver more integrated, patient-centred care across the region.

As a judge for the Healthcare Asia Awards 2026, what standout workforce innovations or capabilities amongst nominees point to the future of healthcare in APAC?

It is always a pleasure to serve as a judge, and I am consistently inspired by the quality and ambition of the work happening across the region.

The first standout theme that stood out to me is a clear shift from concepts to implementation. Many ideas that were previously discussed at a conceptual level — such as AI-enabled solutions or ESG-driven approaches — are now being deployed in real operating environments. Importantly, this is happening across both reactive disease paradigms, including responses to natural disasters, as well as more proactive and preventive models of care, which are essential for the region’s long-term health outcomes.

A second theme is the rise of intrapreneurship within health systems and hospital groups. I was encouraged to see organisations investing the time and resources required to enable innovation from within their own workforce. This is complemented by strong examples of public-private partnerships that support genuinely integrated care models. In some cases, hospitals are collaborating directly with medtech and pharmaceutical companies too, such as on localised or regional R&D initiatives, resulting in solutions that are better tailored to Asia Pacific-specific needs.

Finally, capability development stands out as one of the most critical priorities. Workforce innovation is no longer just about new roles or tools; it is about systematically building the skills required for the future. Many submissions addressed this head-on through structured programmes focused on attracting new types of talent, empowering experienced staff, and — perhaps most importantly — supporting workforce wellbeing. Without a healthy, motivated workforce, even the most advanced technologies and care models will fall short.

Overall, the submissions reflect a region that is not only innovating but also doing so in a thoughtful and human-centred way. I want to congratulate all nominees on their efforts, and I look forward to celebrating these achievements together at the awards dinner.