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!
    
    

    

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