Whether healthcare is your mission or your business, the game is changing. No longer will you compete for "heads in beds," "medical loss" or "medication possession ratio." Increasingly, health organizations are entering competition for the consumers' bodies, hearts and minds.
The ultimate prize is the "lifetime value of customer" — the potential to improve the consumer's longevity and vitality by building a trusted relationship through a series of personalized, coordinated experiences. The market is ready – in a PwC survey, 78 percent of the consumers are open to virtual care and 54 percent are willing to use an FDA-approved app.
A lot of value is at stake — from future revenue streams to savings generated from healthier, more productive communities. Winning the battle will require health organizations to assemble the next generation of integrated health networks — IHN 3.0. Unlike previous networks, these will be built to deliver the best health outcomes by engaging both clinical AND social determinants of health. At the heart of the network will be the consumer's home, with multiple virtual and retails "doors to health" and only about 20 percent of the network assets represented by the acute care hospitals. In order to orchestrate such a network of human, physical and virtual assets around the consumer in a cost-effective way, physicians and administrators will be assisted by artificial intelligence and a range of technologies from facial recognition to personalized medicine.
Not every health organization will become an IHN 3.0, but every organization will likely join one. We anticipate that in some communities, the integrated payer/provider would take the lead, having the most to gain from such a transformation. In other areas, the local academic medical center will take the first step, as the leading healer, innovator and employer around. In other markets, the largest payor or employer will serve as a catalyst or convener. Other organizations will plug into the IHNs, providing the best transportation services, children's medicine, or cancer treatments.
The change, however, will likely not be this straightforward or clean — we anticipate and welcome the competition and innovation that this transition will bring. What remains is to decide: what is your 3.0? The decision will require a set of choices:
- Which consumers will you intentionally design for and serve to deliver a lifetime of health and well-being? What value proposition will you deliver to differentiate from your competitors?
- What role will you play in an IHN 3.0 platform environment and how will it drive growth and value to your organization? What additional roles will you rely on additional partners or vendors and what new organizational muscles will need to be developed to orchestrate a consistent experience in an increasingly networked environment?
- What talent will you need to succeed in an IHN 3.0 future and how will you begin to attract a workforce tuned to your future position?
- How will you align your budgeting and capital planning processes to support the investments necessary to realize your 3.0 while carefully weaning your organization off resource allocations that are aligned to your legacy?
- How will you craft and tune your organization, governance and decision making over time to support transformation to an IHN future straddled across fee-for-service and value-based business models?
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