Friday, December 6, 2013

Top 10 Healthcare Trends: 2014

 
Last month I had the opportunity to sit in on KBM Group's webinar on "Top 10 Healthcare Trends: 2014."  Here's what you missed if you didn't have the chance to listen in!
  1. Obamacare 2.0
    • Affordable Care Act improvements will be made throughout 2014
      • Upfront and behind the scenes
    • Healthcare companies will need to understand: who entered the market, who stayed out, how they shopped, what the risk looks like
  2. Risky Business
    • Millions of healthcare consumers will be entering the market and impacting providers and the system
    • 2014 Provider Trends: Will they have the capacity to serve?
      • Hospitals are combining to stay afloat
        • Hospitals provide $41 billion in uncompensated care
      • Large hospital systems are getting insurance licenses
        • Competing the commercial carriers 
      • Upsurge in retail clinics
        • One national chain reports 17 million patient visits
  3. Quality Matters
    • Incentives and disincentives are beginning to be put in place in hospitals
      • Based on quality of care delivers and patient clinical results
      • Medical errors kill more people each year than Breast Cancer, AIDS or motor vehicle accidents
  4. Chronic America
    • Chronic medical conditions consume health care resources
      • Ranging from Obesity, Heart disease, Diabetes, to the effects of smoking
      • They account for $3 out of every $4 of the country's $2.8 trillion healthcare bill
  5. Behaving Healthy
    • Based on #4 and the number of people impacted by chronic medical conditions, workplace wellness has become a $6 billion industry and will continue to grow in 2014
      • More the 50% of employers with 50 employees or more offer some type of health improvement program
  6. Good Data
    • Obtaining data is not enough to stay competitive, healthcare companies (along with every other company with an RM stream) have been able to collect, analyze and interpret their consumers' data
      • To enable cross-functional communication approaches that are more customized thus resulting in true 360 degree engagement
  7. Retailization
    • Retailization of heathcare means consumers are in control
    • Those that will dominate the marketplace are the ones that will combine the art of marketing with the science of data analytics
  8. Mobile Health
    • General ad spending from 2012 to today has included a huge shift to digital and mobile at the expense of print, newspapers, magazine etc.
    • The healthcare industry is seeing the same shift towards mobile
      • It will be interesting to see how wearable technology impacts patient-doctor interactions
  9. Socialnomics
    • The healthcare industry is attempting to continue to leverage social media
      • Today the fastest growing demographics of social media are the 45-54 and 55-64 age ranges
    • Figuring out how your target audience wants to communicate and interact is a key insight that many companies can still take advantage of
  10. Customer Centricity
    • The differentiating factor for payers, providers and big pharma companies that are engaging with healthcare consumers will be user experience

    Personally the trend that I am most looking forward come to life is the impact of the Mobile Health trend. While I probably will not be able to afford a Sony's SmartWatch 2 (who knows maybe Santa is reading this post), the idea of wearable technology and it's potential to impact doctor-patient interactions and conversation is a very cool one to imagine. Maybe an app will be developed where this type of device has the ability to automatically track how many times a particular symptom flares up and sync with your doctor's files? Who knows the possibilities are endless!

    http://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/bgr-sony-smartwatch-2-3.jpg
    http://boygeniusreport.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/bgr-sony-smartwatch-2-3.jpg

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