John Peterzalek, chief client officer at Cerner, recently shared nine trends he expects to shape the healthcare industry in 2019.
"Healthcare is a fast-paced industry defined by dramatic shifts in regulations, technology, care delivery and patient-physician interactions," he wrote in a Jan. 9 company blog post. "The accomplishments leading up to 2019 — such as the digitization of healthcare, an increase in patient-centered care and the promotion of evidence-based medicine — are the foundation for even more innovation and improvement to come."
The nine trends shaping the healthcare industry this year, as outlined in Mr. Peterzalek's blog post:
1. Value-based care. "The concept of value over volume was much-discussed in 2018, and the push for outcomes-based care will continue to progress in 2019 as the industry strives to lower costs and provide higher quality care for individuals and populations."
2. Interoperable systems. "As the industry continues to embrace advanced interoperability strategies, the volume of exchanged information will scale, making it critical to have the right data infrastructure to create actionable results."
3. Home healthcare. "Experts in the field foresee more tech investments and increased collaboration between home health and hospitals in 2019. As the industry faces an extensive labor shortage, optical sensors, wearable monitoring devices and other technology will help fill the gap."
4. Outpatient care. "In addition to financial savings, outpatient care also provides greater convenience and access for consumers with non-urgent needs — another indicator of consumer demands driving industry change."
5. 'Small data.' "Instead of gathering more data, hospitals will look to get the most useful body of information. One example of this is the movement toward more sophistication in identifying biomarkers to optimize diagnostic power over multiple diseases."
6. Cloud-based apps. "In addition to being more cost efficient, the cloud offers greater reliability, security and accessibility. More healthcare organizations will move their entire IT infrastructure to the cloud in 2019, and the global healthcare cloud computing market is predicted to hit $35 billion by 2022."
7. Consumer engagement. "The industry will continue to move toward prevention and away from reactive care. This proactive approach will mean greater use of portals, health apps, remote patient monitoring and other tools that empower consumers to be involved in and knowledgeable about their care."
8. Analytics. "Virtual assistants will automate the management of personalized care plans. Precision medicine and social determinants of health will take a front seat as healthcare becomes tailored to individual patients. In hospital operations, predictive models will be used to improve decision-making processes across the health system enterprise from bed management to staffing."
9. Physician wellness. "A recent study by Medscape shows that more than 50 percent of physicians are burned out or colloquially depressed ... In 2019, healthcare organizations will need to prioritize organizational changes and support physicians in individual interventions that address burnout."
To read Mr. Peterzalek's blog post, click here.