Mega Trends Facing the Healthcare Industry Today

Bold and provocative keynote speaker Ezekiel J. Emanuel presented top trends in healthcare to more than 1,400 members on day one of the AHLA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Of the mega trends Emanuel predicted, we anticipate the following three trends will impact the healthcare industry sooner rather than later.

1.       The end of insurance companies as we know them. 

In order to survive, insurance companies will need to either transform into integrated delivery systems or focus on authoring analytics actuarial modeling or risk management services.  

2.       Focused care on the chronically ill. 

10% of the healthcare population represents two-thirds of the cost.  We must focus on the chronically ill and need tertiary prevention.

3.       The emergence of digital medicine and closure of hospitals. 

We will continue to see hospitals closing due to new technology and telehealth.  This will allow physicians to see patients outside of the typical hospital setting.  

His advice to hospitals included:

Ezekiel J. Emanuel is a professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania,  who also served as a special advisor to the White House on healthcare reform.  He is the author of “Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act will Improve our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System.”