The coming year is expected to be a transformative year for the healthcare industry. While 2019 had some important milestones of its own — including the move toward an IT-based culture, the acceptance and embrace of innovative technologies (artificial intelligence and machine learning), and the use of data analytics to influence patient care — 2020 will have no shortage of disruption ahead for the healthcare industry. Of this disruption includes three trends that will be important for healthcare organizations to follow if they want to start out the new decade on the right foot.
TREND #1: A PLAN TO MOVE FROM REACTIVE TO CONSUMERIZED CARE
With consumerization top of mind in virtually all industries, reactive healthcare just isn’t cutting it anymore. In reactive healthcare, a system that waits for a problem to arise versus anticipating and planning beforehand, more money is spent, clinicians are stretched thin, and patients have a higher risk for complications and even death. The key to negating a reactive approach to healthcare happens when healthcare organizations moves toward a hyper-personalized experience with cross-channel integration — otherwise known as a more proactive approach.
TREND #2: A FOCUS ON ADDRESSING SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH (SDOH)
In order to improve overall patient care, providers must gain a better understanding of the factors that affect patients’ ability to have access to and sustain treatment plans. Experts note that non-clinical influences (SDoH), including housing, transportation, and lifestyles, drive up to 80 percent of clinical outcomes. Recognizing this, experts “predict [that] more organizations will make efforts to remove these barriers and coordinate services to improve health outcomes of individuals and enhance the overall health of the populations they serve,” explain HGS’s Mary Jane Konstantin in a recent eBook.
TREND #3: A SHIFT IN HEALTHCARE DESIGN THINKING
Recently, healthcare organizations have adopted “design thinking” in order to solve complex problems as the industry makes the shift to value-based, otherwise known as consumerized, care. Today’s shift in healthcare design thinking is based on the principles of multi-disciplinary thinking, empathy, and rapid, iterative solutions deployment. Using this three-pronged approach to design thinking, empathy allows for providers to uncover patient needs, multi-disciplinary thinking defines the solution with a broad solution space, and rapid iterative solutions deployment puts tailored solutions to work quickly.
With the year just beginning, those in the healthcare industry have ample time to accelerate their business and more importantly, improve patient outcomes. By moving from reactive to consumerized care, focusing on addressing SDoH, and making a shift in healthcare design thinking – following the three-pronged approach – organizations in the healthcare sector have the opportunity to flourish not just survive.
To learn about other healthcare trends to follow in 2020 click here.
