Healthcare Trends Leading into 2022

I vividly remember ringing in 2020 with anticipation and excitement about how my family and my career would evolve that year.?My oldest daughter was in her junior year of high school and we were gearing up for college visits that spring.?My middle daughter was excited to be a high school freshman the next year and already dreaming of driving.?Our youngest daughter was becoming more independent but still filled with energy and wonder.?My wife and I would spend hours marveling at our kids and the path that our lives had taken to get us to that point.?We were debating our next stage in life and what that would mean for my career and, most importantly, our family.?2020 and 2021 have brought sadness, hope, opportunity and sacrifice both personally and professionally for many of us.?Throughout this, healthcare has been a major focus for us as a society.

COVID-19 has abruptly changed our world since 2019 and continues to trigger fundamental shifts that will likely impact us in the years to come. The sudden disruption that stemmed from this pandemic has affected all sectors, but healthcare has felt a great impact and played a major role throughout this challenge. From massive financial challenges, operational disconnections, disrupted workflows and planning complexities, fundamental changes to existing care delivery models are imperative.?I believe that the following 5 trends in healthcare are amongst the most exciting and will continue through 2022 and beyond.

1.??????Shift toward Value-based care

The pandemic has drawn sharp attention to the racial and economic disparities in healthcare. This is evident not only within our national borders but even more pronounced on the international front.?In the United States, ?the value-based care model, provides incentive to create population health-focused care delivery and lower costs while keeping the patients well. The incentives of a value-based care model can be useful in addressing our country’s tenacious health disparities. Metrics related to social determinants of health and reducing health disparities can be incorporated into these models of care reliably leading to improved access to care for all regardless of socioeconomic differences.

2.??????The Rise of Collaboration

COVID-19 has shown the power of health science collaboration. AstraZeneca, BioNTech, Moderna, and Pfizer are all familiar household names now. The production of life-saving vaccines during this pandemic reflects the remarkable and rapid power of collaboration amongst industry and academic researchers enhanced by a government infrastructure that promoted rapid bench to bed translation. The collaboration between academia and industry is well established in many parts of the world but the speed and scale of achievement during this pandemic is rare and unprecedented. The collaboration amidst media scrutiny as the world anxiously awaited a vaccine didn’t make things easier. As we move forward, barriers to collaboration should be dismantled as much as possible so we can continue to improve our health together.

3.??????Care Delivery Transformation and Cost Control

Since the beginning of the outbreak, health systems have operated at the frontlines, providing care to infected patients, taking steps to ensure safety amongst employees and visitors, and reconfiguring delivery systems to accommodate surges in service demand. Expanding use of virtual care platforms and utilizing site-of-care flexibilities to provide appropriate care in the outpatient setting helped health systems navigate through the pandemic. While health systems met the challenge of surge capacity through unprecedented collaboration and innovation, the COVID-19 experience reveals the importance of identifying new approaches to rapidly and sustainably expanding patient care delivery, not only during public health emergencies, but as a new standard to ensure maximal value.

4.??????Data Analytics and Innovation

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted everything from consumer behavior to supply chains, and the economic fallout is causing further changes. Our economic recovery today will look different than past recoveries and, on a fundamental level, the way we innovate will be different that it’s ever been before. ?The crisis has accelerated the adoption of analytics and AI. Both elements have become critical as organizations have reacted to shifts in working arrangements and consumer purchasing brought on by COVID-19. Analytics and AI have helped companies predict, prepare, and foresee issues that may disrupt their abilities to deliver products and services. Although we have been severely challenged with supply chain constraints over the last 20 months, we are better prepared for the future.?New opportunities will arise for entrepreneurs, business leaders, and innovators to build value and launch new ventures that can rapidly re-configure and realign as customer needs change. Data analytics and AI will play a key role in boosting business innovation and advancement.

5.??????Workforce Management

As COVID-19 resets workforce assumptions, such as the rise in remote work, many organizations are altering their existing business models. The focus of workforce planning has become where, when, and how to secure and move talent to critical workflows. New remote work norms mean talent is potentially everywhere. This shift has resulted in a radical change in talent competition, more options to acquire lower-cost talent, and improved ways to recruit diverse talent. Remote work has enabled flexibility, productivity, and cost savings in the workforce.

Healthcare has been the foundation to America’s response to COVID-19, focused first and foremost on providing care to infected patients while navigating challenges ranging from capacity gaps to supply chain shortages. The pandemic has highlighted how multifaceted the delivery of healthcare is and the power of collaboration and partnerships in addressing public health challenges. Although health systems have adapted throughout the pandemic to meet the needs of patient, from introducing new delivery models and rethinking staffing workflows, many opportunities were also presented to not only improve long-term preparedness for public health emergencies but also the effectiveness of baseline operations. As we work together, we will discover novel ways to navigate through the next phase of the pandemic and spur new innovations that will bring healthcare delivery to new heights.

The adventure continues...

Happy New Year!