Insight

The Future of Healthcare

Over the next decade, we expect hospitals and clinics will increase their investment in these alternate service types while insurers expand their support of such offerings. As this trend accelerates, we believe more preventive and minor acute care will be delivered virtually “at home,” outside of the regular workday, by what is likely to be a larger and more diverse set of providers (e.g., pharmacists, nurse extenders, etc.).

Emerging technologies will advance patient-centricity, convenience and improved outcomes

We are also tracking the deployment trends of a wide variety of technologies--from major Silicon Valley players and health care professionals--to life sciences organizations and governments. According to Dow Jones VentureWire, “venture-capital funding in U.S. healthcare companies rose to a record $16.10 billion last year, a 34% jump from 2014.” Several exciting investment trends are making a big difference in advancing better healthcare outcomes, for example:

Simple speech will deliver faster, more accurate diagnosis

Over the next few years, we believe physicians will routinely add speech analysis to their diagnostic toolbox since the tone and words a patient uses is proving to be a reliable means for detecting potential issues such as depression, PTSD, mental illness, dementia—and even heart disease.

Innovation in the use of digital speech to augment clinical diagnosis is especially active in the startup community where technologists are finding less invasive ways to detect abnormalities sooner, thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Speech pattern analysis (from patient audio samples) can augment, or even replace, labor-intensive diagnostic processes that require highly educated medical professionals. Such decreases in the reliance on highly trained experts and difficult-to-locate clinicians will also lead to earlier diagnosis, which would reduce both costs and the stress of long, arduous patient treatment regimens.

We believe patients will increasingly rely on speech-enabled chatbots to help them efficiently navigate disparate health systems. As these systems begin to incorporate AI-supported “deep learning” capabilities, it’s only a matter of time before these chatbots provide preliminary diagnosis and present data-based treatment options that are physician-approved and made available to a patient in real time.

AI and analytics will continue to enable healthcare breakthroughs

We are also monitoring increased deployments of AI-enabled analytics. In a recent survey, 82 percent of healthcare decision-makers said they’re “experiencing clinical benefits (improved patient care) through data analytics.”

Advancements in AI, data science and smart machines, particularly their contribution to algorithmic medicine, will radically improve clinical care as important decisions are made faster and with greater physician confidence. Of particular promise is the ability of AI-enabled algorithms to reduce, even eliminate, human clinical involvement in care that is highly routine. For example, over the next decade, millions of ER visits will be reduced or even eliminated thanks to early detection from AI-enhanced virtual care. Such savings will give physicians more time to study complex situations and focus on health outcomes and patient satisfaction.

For example, in a 2018 Nielsen survey of digital healthcare, analysis of U.S. federal health data shows that $7 billion of physician’s time could be eliminated each year by shifting office visits to home through virtual care. We are also seeing a rise in anecdotal evidence where clinicians order tests and procedures that aren't medically necessary (usually in efforts to avoid malpractice or to protect themselves in other ways). Virtual care, powered by algorithmic medicine, could go a long way to dilute, even eliminate this overly cautious behavior, which is expensive and time-consuming—and doesn’t necessarily contribute to effective outcomes. AI and algorithmic medicine also promises to reduce waste and eliminate duplicate tests through best-practice standardization.

Healthcare platforms will be more connected, collaborative and integrated

We believe Healthcare-as-a-platform (HaaP) will be vital to personalization as sensors and apps, embedded in internet of things (IoT) health devices, collect data and alert patients and providers to precursors of disease. These advancements will enable earlier detection. New platforms will also alert patients to changes in vital signs and body chemistry that may be leading indicators of more acute disorders. Hence, patients will immediately be provided with information, recommendations and options for preventing the onset of disease before it occurs.

As innovations such as IoT mature, we believe healthcare platforms will evolve to help physicians and their teams get in front of illness faster and with greater confidence—to the benefit of all. This trend, which is happening much faster than expected, is fueling the move to replace fee-for-service (where providers are paid for the amount of service delivered) to a value-based model, which pays providers based on outcomes.

To be successful, value-based care (VBC) requires a holistic approach to treating a patient. This will lead to connected care teams, supported by interoperable electronic health records (EHRs) that share patient data to better coordinate care between care providers, pharmacies and payors. Take chronic disease, which is both costly and time-consuming for patients. Only 56 percent of such patients receive recommended preventive healthcare services to treat conditions such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, depression and heart disease. That could dramatically change under a VBC system designed around a team’s ability to achieve measurable improvements from a more comprehensive approach.

How can you harness game-changing ideas and technology to compete in a transformed, outcomes-based industry? To prepare for the future, we recommend several priority actions:   

Invest in cultural reform

As the migration from a fee-for-service to a fee-for-value system evolves, we advise executives place priority investment on helping their organizations change and adapt. VBC has been enthusiastically embraced by the medical community as an effective way to reduce costs while increasing the quality and outcomes of healthcare. Hence, we predict acceleration in VBC implementation as it proves to help people lead healthier lives.

However, a value-based model won’t succeed if healthcare executives don’t reform cultures that improperly value service quantity and revenue—over prevention. For example, by engaging patients early and recognizing the precursors of chronic disease (e.g, pre-diabetes), interventions can be developed that prevent the disease or slow it's progression.

The benefits of prevention can be acclerated with the creation of more cross-functional, cross-discipline teams staffed with para-professionals. Smaller hospitals (because they tend to be more agile than larger organizations) and highly empowered, multidiscipline teams will also advance the trend toward outcomes-based care.

Use alliances to advance innovation

Healthcare executives should pay particular attention to the trend toward more vertical integration between retail, payers and providers as it gains momentum. Mergers and other collaborations that bring together firms in vertically adjacent industries, for example, CVS/Aetna and Express Scripts/Cigna, will continue. While health systems are just beginning to experiment with offering their own integrated insurance products, we expect to see significant progress will be made over the next 10 years, potentially leading to a merger between one or more large health insurance company and large regional or national health system by 2030. 

We also believe half of all healthcare delivery organizations will ally with Google, Apple and Amazon in their clinical diagnostic and treatment processes over the next decade. Will these digital giants become partners, collaborators or competitors? While the answer to this question is still evolving, we advise healthcare executives take the trend seriously as these new entrants will surely impact the ways we access and pay for healthcare services.