As we’ve seen in recent elections here in the US, healthcare is a hot topic.
While we don’t know what the future of healthcare looks like, we know for a fact that big changes are coming.
To get a better grasp of what’s next, we spoke with industry thought leaders and asked….
In one question: What’s the future of healthcare?
Here’s what the thought leaders have to say…
Brad Bostic, CEO and Chairman, hc1.com
“Acceleration in the rise of consumerism and the cloud. As people shift to high deductible health plans with health savings accounts, they become discriminating healthcare consumers. They expect to pay for high quality care and excellent service, a trend that will continue as the cost of healthcare explodes. When considering where to spend their healthcare dollar, the new healthcare consumer expects to receive the same caliber of individualized service that retailers like Amazon deliver. The key to Amazon’s success is its use of the cloud to continuously construct, organize, and enrich customer profiles that lead to personalized engagement and tailored service for each and every customer.
In order to thrive in 2017 and beyond, healthcare organizations must find ways to better unify, mine, and leverage data to uncover the insight necessary to deliver truly personalized care.”
Laurie Halloran, CEO of Boston-based Halloran Consulting Group
“The state of the healthcare industry in 15 years will be directly related to what happens in our government in the next year or two. If I were being optimistic, my projection would be that the enablement and widespread evolution and integration of mobile applications for health maintenance and cost containment will enable patients to take even more control of their healthcare, and preventative measures in diet, exercise and wellness practices would extend the productive lifespan into the late 90s for many. My pessimistic side fears that if widespread lack of affordable insurance and deportation of tens of thousands of our medical personnel based on their country of origin would create a very difficult scenario whereby the US population will continue to lose ground in mortality and morbidity, moving closer to countries who are lagging vs. leading.”
George Kalogeropoulos, Founder and CEO of HealthSherpa
“Healthcare costs continue to increase at an unsustainable pace, and that’s all going to come to a head in the next 10-15 years. Absent a revolutionary shift in the payment model (single-payer) or cost of care (robots), we’ll see an increasingly bifurcated market, with more flexibility, more choice, and better care for higher income consumers, and limited choices, rigid cost controls, and rationing for lower income consumers and those on government programs. Expect to see a proliferation of coverage options, huge emphasis on consumer-driven healthcare, high-deductible health plans (HDHPs), and health savings accounts (HSAs), and a weakening of the traditional expectation that fully-employed people get health insurance through their jobs. As more Americans begin to bear the financial burden of the healthcare costs created by their lifestyle choices, there will be a renewed emphasis on diet, exercise, prevention and early detection which will be accelerated by pending health reform legislation.”
Dr. Jeff Wells, President and Co-founder of OurHealth
“Dr. Wells believes the healthcare industry will follow the personalization trend currently happening in the retail and tech industries and that employers will begin offering personalized healthcare options to compete on talent. Currently employees spend more time sitting in a waiting room than with an actual healthcare provider. In the next 10-15 years a more patient-centric approach to healthcare will be in place, improving overall health and decreasing healthcare costs.”
Ira S. Pastor, CEO of Bioquark Inc
“The future of healthcare is about creating cures for the chronic, degenerative diseases that are responsible for the majority of human suffering and death, as opposed to focusing on treatments that deal with the symptoms of such conditions.
We recently surpassed $7 trillion in total annual healthcare expenditures around the globe, close to a $1 trillion of which was spent on pharmaceutical products, with an additional $200 billion spent on new life science research and development. Despite those incredible financial dynamics, we are witnessing a rise in the prevalence of almost all chronic degenerative diseases, as well as an on-going growth and aging of the population.
A merging a 21st century understanding of a diverse range disciplines, including regenerative biology, evolutionary medicine, and complex gene regulatory systems, will allow us to take real steps in such a direction and the next 10-15 years promise a true hope in this context.”
Steve Woody, CEO of Avadim Technologies
“The future of healthcare will be shaped by a new paradigm: eradicating the existing “sick care” approach to deliver true “health care” that takes a proactive approach to defending against infections with microbiome compliant products that deliver clinically proven outcomes without negatively affecting the colonization of the skin’s microorganisms that human beings depend on to stay alive. We are just learning about the value of microbiome compliant therapies for the skin and the future value in sustained global health outcomes. Avadim is on a mission to move these therapies from the clinical to the consumer space to benefit skin health worldwide. These technologies are rapidly evolving and are resulting in new partnerships with pharmacies and health centers to further change the future delivery of global healthcare.”
Erik Gerard, Principal at Impact Advisors
“Given the need for healthcare to become more efficient and effective, technology will be leveraged to improve patient outcomes and engagement, while reducing the burden on clinicians. Electronic Health Records (EHR) are providing access to significant amounts of data, providing knowledge and actionable insights for predictive patient intervention and outcome risk calculation.
Technology will also be used to optimize response to patients’ needs. Creating an observation fabric consisting of patient location services, smart beds and remote visual observation will improve hospitals’ ability to engage with patients in a timely manner. Similar location technologies can be used to automatically communicate with personnel on the floor who are immediately available to interact with the patient in need.
As hospital systems grow, either by organically or by acquisition, they must centralize and standardize their workflows, operations and technology. This will allow them to reduce costs of redundant and disparate systems.”
James Dias, CEO of Wellbe, Inc.
“Ten years from now, transactional healthcare will be a distant memory. Patients will drive their own healthcare experiences in partnership with their physicians and focused around their personal health goals. Technology will catalyze the shift to patient-centered, value-based care, resulting in higher satisfaction and better outcomes.
Automated coordination will deliver more efficient and effective care, with digital carepaths comprised of smart patient workflows. Physiological, psychological, and genetic information will support comprehensive, highly tailored, integrated pathways. Patients will have the information needed to set and achieve their own health goals, guided by their doctors. And providers will have the data and analytics needed to deliver higher quality care at lower costs.
As we continue to innovate around cloud-based platforms that streamline care delivery and provide greater visibility into actionable data, healthcare providers can get back to the business of healing.”
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