Health Care : The New Normal

Introduction

Continued disruption will require health care boards to adapt their governance models. In these unprecedented times, what priorities should hospital and health care system boards focus on to prepare for 2021 and beyond? As organizations manage through the pandemic, we expect continued disruption to be the norm, and pathways to success will increasingly depend on collaboration, innovation, digitization and scaling ahead of the competition.

2022 will see similar technology trends in healthcare, as well as adoption of new technologies, though most of it will be the ripple effect of the changes that happened in 202. Read on to find our detailed analysis of the most significant healthtech technology trends for this year to stay ahead of the market.

Successful organizations will build upon this mindset, finding ways to close gaps and innovate with partners that bring unique skills to solve problems.

Collaborative Ecosystem

COVID-19 has exposed vulnerability at health care organizations across the globe on critical issues, including safety, equipment, data availability, and infrastructure. Early on, it became apparent that “going it alone,” in terms of depending on an organization’s own supply lines and capabilities, wasn’t possible. This led to ad hoc collaborations, with providers, suppliers and non-health-care companies jumping in to deliver resources and capacity to address the crisis.

There will hardly be another year that will change healthcare as much as 2021 did. The global pandemic pushed the sector to adapt and innovate. It defined, too, how healthcare will change in the next 10 years.

This does not mean the industry has moved substantially from the path that it was on. Digital technologies were already having an impact on healthcare, but the investment in change wasn’t hurried. Now investment is an expedited change.

More Strategic and Agile Supply Chains

Successful supply chains are becoming a key differentiator and vital part of the care delivery process in ways we have never seen before in health care. Getting it right requires strategic systems thinking around all functions in the organization. Among the topics for boards to consider:

• Increasing storage and self-distribution. What’s old is new again. We see a trend toward more self-distribution models instead of just-in-time delivery from distributors. This allows organizations to buy in bulk, control distribution and minimize their reliance on items at risk of being depleted. Organizations do not have a limitless supply of capital so this is not a one-size-fits-all procurement strategy, but it may make sense for certain items in the supply chain.
• Deeper relationships and back-up suppliers. The value of vendor-of-choice relationships became apparent as many hospitals scrambled for pandemic-related supplies. The key is striking a strategic balance between price, performance and trust. Getting the lowest price but lacking a relationship that cannot be “prioritized” in a crisis is no ideal. Neither is over reliance on one vendor without having plans B, C and D in place. We see many organizations developing connections with tiers of back-up suppliers — often smaller and geographically closer than their primary vendors — to gain flexibility, speed and as much certainty as possible that critical items will be on hand when needed.
• New supply chain models for new care settings. Health care futurists believe that by 2040, most care will be delivered at home, in outpatient settings or virtually. Adapting to this new way of care — in terms of supplies and delivery methods — will require relationships with different types of vendors, such as retailers, contract employees and technology providers. This is an exciting but huge challenge: how to reimagine supply chains to deliver non-hospital-based care in a safe, cost-effective and high-quality way at scale.
• Smarter, faster, predictive information. Expect to see more automation software and artificial intelligence (AI) in health care supply chains. In addition to freeing personnel from repetitive tasks, these technologies can assist decision-makers in identifying trends and providing resources to workers. For example, predictive analytics focused on population health within an organization or system could alert managers to trending disease states and their associated supply needs. Supply chain managers could use AI tools to master the new transportation logistics of getting supplies to widely dispersed home care settings and so on.

Coopetition as a Viable Strategy

Cooperative competition, or coopetition, is a key trend in health care. While some providers view big-box stores, nationwide pharmaceutical chains and other new entrants as threats, other organizations see opportunity. Their strategy is to leverage the capabilities of these power players to lower the cost of care, increase downstream market capture and focus on core specialty services while remaining highly connected to the patient.

• Offload financially draining services. Organizations like CVS and Walmart now offer basic primary care, simple diagnostic services and chronic disease management — services that health systems have struggled to provide and do so profitably. Identifying opportunities to partner with retail organizations to fill this gap can help simplify organizational services, increase access and provide better patient care at a lower cost.
• Expand the market while improving community health. New entrants can be a force multiplier and increase the overall market for health services. Look for opportunities where your services could have a significant impact on community health and partner intentionally. For example, about half of women age 40 and older do not get screening mammograms. If mammography services provided by a large retailer were successful in motivating this population, the majority of women receiving in-store mammograms would not need follow-up care. However, many would require referrals for follow-up diagnostic exams and, possibly, treatment. Establishing a two-way relationship with that new entrant — sharing data and providing easy access to hospitals or health systems — could open the door to a potentially significant flow of new referrals.
• Think outside your ZIP code. With the emergence of virtual services and virtual workforces, the talent pool is expanding and new entrants are emerging that can offer services at a lower cost and often at a higher quality than is possible for some organizations. One example is the collaboration between tele-ICU service providers and small, rural hospitals to improve their patients’ access to highly specialized critical care. Organizations also have increased flexibility to find personnel in clinical areas, such as subspecialty radiologists, and to cover nonclinical areas where it’s difficult to recruit talent, such as revenue cycle specialists, IT staff and customer service representatives.

Patient and Workforce Engagement

Patient Consumerization

Today we can receive goods the same day we order them, and track them minute by minute from order placement to delivery. It’s not surprising that patients expect the same high level of efficiency and transparency from their health care providers. Instead, some patients may have to wait weeks or months for an appointment and have only a vague idea of when exam results will be available. Organizations need to assess their current barriers to consumer satisfaction and deploy analytics and patient-centric technologies to improve the convenience, speed and transparency of care. For example, when a West Coast health system adopted precision scheduling practices to minimize wasted time between imaging exams, they were able to open up 5,000 new exam slots annually, so patients could be scheduled sooner.

Personalization of Care

While patients want the convenience and ease of digital interactions, personalized care is still the touchstone of their loyalty. According to a 2020 survey of health care consumers, an “ideal” health care experience requires a personal touch, whether that encounter occurs virtually or in person. Patients say it’s paramount that clinicians take time to listen, show they care and communicate clearly. For improvement efforts to have teeth, they must be associated with programs that drive measurable outcomes. For example, a major academic medical center created a communication training program to teach doctors best practices to follow in interactions with patients. Within a year, the percentage of patients who “always” felt that the doctors listened, treated them with respect and explained things well rose by 9 points.

Workforce Diversity and Safety

It will continue to be a challenge for providers to find the next generation of leaders to replace baby boomer executives who are retiring at a high rate. Other top issues include:

• Inclusion and diversity. The momentum around improving inclusion and diversity within health care teams is encouraging. There is strong evidence that diverse teams and inclusive cultures drive better outcomes (especially among diverse patient populations), more effective problem-solving, greater engagement and higher employee retention.
• Flexibility. Large organizations are using their scale to invest in IT tools and programs that give employees greater flexibility to work remotely. The virtualization and gig economy has already begun and will be in full effect in health care over the next several years.
• Physical and mental health. The issue of employee safety was amplified by COVID-19 as organizations redesigned care delivery spaces and protocols on the fly to protect health care workers and patients. These efforts will broaden as health systems ramp up testing of patients and employees, remote working and virtual care services. Organizations need to keep a pulse on staff burnout, continually looking for ways to make their jobs more sustainable and expanding access to mental health services.

Digital Acceleration

Virtual Care

We will continue to see the emergence of virtual care solutions across the care continuum from telehealth visits to virtual hospital care and home-based care. In February 2020, less than 1 percent of Medicare primary care visits were conducted via telehealth; by April, driven by the pandemic, the volume had risen to 43 percent. This growth appears to have staying power as both patients and physicians adopt a new virtualization mindset. It will be important for organizations to align their virtual strategy with the changing needs of their markets, growth strategy and evolving payment models. This isn’t a silver bullet but instead is a natural progression to support providers and patients in a more meaningful way: Virtual needs to become the way organizations work versus a disconnected component of the strategy.

Artificial Intelligence and Automation

AI and automation are taking hold in health care at an accelerated rate as they have in other fields such as banking, media and retail. A few examples to watch:

• Quality and efficiency in radiology. AI is having an amazing impact in radiology with solutions to reduce redundant tasks, eliminate bias-based reading errors, identify data patterns in images to predict risk and enhance workflow processes. For example, a GE Healthcare partnership with Intel aims to enhance patient care and reduce costs for hospitals and health systems using digital imaging solutions, deployed via edge and cloud. Together, the companies anticipate their solutions will offer greater hospital efficiency through increased asset performance, reduced patient risk and dosage exposure — with faster image processing – and expedited time to diagnosis and treatment.
• Real-time analytics to expedite care. Large organizations are harnessing real-time information to drive the care process. Command center software platforms, for example, combine systems engineering, predictive analytics and problem-solving to manage patient flow in and through the health system while aiming to preserve clinical quality, safety and the patient experience. The development of next generation applications to support caregivers is continuing to drive breakthrough performance in both a centralized and decentralized manner.
• Productivity in nonclinical areas. Automation is streamlining health system business operations that lean heavily on repetitive tasks, such as supply chain, revenue cycle and customer service. Expect to see new sensors in health care (HL7, cameras, speakers, weather forecasting and more) that enhance productivity in even more significant ways.

Telemedicine

Telemedicine would represent the simplest form of an on-demand service in the list of healthcare technology trends. Not every patient needs to go to an emergency room or a hospital to consult with a doctor, and a teleconsultation could be the most appropriate alternative.

It might seem like a nice-to-have option, but in the context of 2020, it suddenly turned into a must. In the early days of the pandemic restrictions, patients with chronic health issues—diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and so on—had to stay away from hospitals. This delayed the care they needed, the care that could have been provided through?telemedicine adoption and connected medical devices.

Cybersecurity

Hackers chose to attack healthcare infrastructure while it was at its weakest in decades. The COVID-19 vaccine has been repeatedly targeted by hackers.?

Pfizer, BioNTech, and the European Medicines Agency all reported attacks targeted at vaccine data. More than a few hospitals in the US fell victim to ransomware, which forced the healthcare sector to become far more conscious about its cybersecurity infrastructure.

Cybersecurity firm Carbon Black found that there were 239.4 million attempted attacks against their healthcare customers in 2020. Their report on cybersecurity in healthcare “found an average of 816 attempted attacks per endpoint in 2020, which represents a 9,851% increase from 2019.”

It’s clear that cybersecurity and data protection are probably the most monitored among all the emerging healthcare IT trends in 2022. Multiple data breaches in healthcare and attacks have emphasized the need to invest in cybersecurity. It’s only natural that a push towards a more digital healthcare industry will need a security infrastructure to protect it. This means that cybersecurity firms are likely to see an increase in healthcare clients in 2022.

Internet of Medical Things (IoMT)

The wide adoption of IoMT devices would be the easiest to predict among the health tech trends in 2022.?

Devices that are part of the Internet of Medical Things will solve at least some problems that the healthcare sector had to deal with in 2020. IoMT can save money for the healthcare industry, too. A Goldman Sachs report estimated that IoT healthcare could save $300 billion through better ways of practicing medicine.?

For example, telemedicine saves money by keeping all non-essential consultations away from hospitals—cutting down on the time and infrastructure costs. In addition, IoT healthcare can increase operational efficiency. Like in all digitized industries, workflows can be optimized and automated. For example, real-time data on everything medicine or equipment makes healthcare administration efficient. Tracking digital tags on medicines can help fight counterfeit drugs.

But IoMT devices are of the highest value in administering healthcare. They can bring healthcare to remote areas that cannot afford to have full-time hospitals. They bring regular consultations into people’s homes, which is especially important for patients with limited mobility. Portable point-of-care devices can run almost any regular test now—and share the results remotely with a doctor.

Digital solutions proved their worth in 2020. The global IoMT market was valued at $44.5 billion in 2018 and is expected to grow to $254.2 billion in 2026. Investments in IoMT and other digital solutions are already on the rise, and the?new trend in healthcare technology is likely to continue in 2022.

Healthcare Data Interoperability

It’s usually difficult to make new medical technology trends predictions, but data interoperability is an easy one.?

Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Electronic Medical Records (EMR) have been advancing interoperability for some time now. However, with the investments in healthcare digitization, interoperability could become a major medical technology trend for 2022.

In the US, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has finalized its rules that give individuals greater control in sharing health information, a consumer-centric approach to healthcare. Patients can now access and share their electronic health information more easily. Interoperability between providers and medtech developers is also expected to improve.

Tech companies are getting involved as well. Google launched its Cloud Healthcare Interoperability Readiness Program to help healthcare clients evaluate and comply with the interoperability rule. The company says many of its clients cannot currently comply as they’re using legacy systems

The impact was already visible last year. EHR provider Epic reported that its interoperability platform had shared over 221 million patient records in November 2020, a 40% increase compared to the same period a year ago.

Then there are AI startups like Saykara. They’re developing an AI assistant for healthcare providers to monitor patient visits and listen in on doctor-patient conversations to document consultations. Clearly, interoperability initiatives are on the rise.

Business Growth

Revenue Diversification

In my conversations with chief information officers, data is becoming the currency of tomorrow and the infrastructure must support needs at scale. Expect to see large organizations making big investments to better leverage and monetize the use of data to improve productivity, enhance patient care and drive additional funding for key programs. We also see organizations monetizing data/intellectual property through relationships with nontraditional partners in pharma and big tech, and forming venture capital funds to manage downside risk related to unpredictable patient volumes and volatility of traditional nonoperating investments.

Mergers and integration

U.S. hospitals will exceed $320 billion in losses in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19, according to AHA projections. Financial pressures will continue to be prevalent as more providers see a lifeline in partnering with larger organizations to remain competitive in today’s health care landscape. Expect to see more large health systems as organizations try to monetize large investments and drive synergies from scale.

Payer Shifts

With COVID-19 throwing historical utilization rates on their head and making 2021 projections nearly impossible to calculate, employers, providers and payers are forced to consider utilization, rates and risk as they model the coming year.

• Employers are experiencing difficulty in funding their current plans and considering shifts in plan design or reduction of benefits. They will increasingly look to partner with provider and payer organizations to manage costs and the health of their teams.
• Providers will continue to collaborate with payers to advance low-cost, high-quality care, with a focus on growing ambulatory and virtual care services to adapt to patients’ evolving needs.
• Payers will shape their investments and plan designs to drive high-quality virtual care and increasingly recognize home as a path for care, while managing their networks for high acuity and chronic care pathways.