“Digital health tools have been riding the peak of the hype cycle for several years now, but 2019 will be the year that digital health innovators will be accountable for delivering tangible results”: that is the bold prediction made in a new report released Jan. 30 by the Chicago-based HIMSS (Healthcare Information Management & Systems Society). The report, entitled “2019 Healthcare Trends Forecast: The Beginning of a Consumer-Driven Reformation,” covers a broad range of topics, and is authored by a whole team of healthcare IT leaders, some of them senior HIMSS executives, and others among them leaders from outside the association.
Among the topics discussed in the report: the growing demand for “digital health innovators” to demonstrate “greater tangible results”; growing consumer pressure that the authors believe “will accelerate global reformation and value-based care”; financial and demographic challenges that will “inspire new methods of care delivery”; and “escalating data debates that will “drive policy changes.”
The authors of the report are Half Wolf, president and CEO of HIMSS; Charles Alessi, M.D., HIMSS’ chief clinical officer; Steve Wretling, HIMSS’ chief technology innovation officer; Tom Leary, HIMSS’ vice president of government affairs; Robert Havasy, senior director at Connected Health and HIMSS interim executive director of the Connected Health Alliance; Blain Newton, executive vice president, HIMSS Analytics; Neil Patel, president, Healthbox and executive vice president of HIMSS; Rod Piechowski, senior director of cybersecurity at HIMSS; and Indu Subaiya, M.D., executive vice president of Health 2.0.
In their introduction, the authors of the report concede that there are a lot of unknowns going forward. “A perfect storm of factors – including the shift toward value-based care, rising costs, health system consolidation, the approaching silver tsunami, regulatory pressures, increased consumerization, major technology players entering the market and the ever-expanding potential of digital health tools – are coalescing and fundamentally disrupting business models,” they write. “Traditional healthcare institutions are in reactive mode. Upstarts are finding that healthcare is not as easily disrupted as industries like retail. For nearly everyone, there are more questions than answers.”
Still, as the report’s authors note, “Consumer pressure and the policy/regulatory environment will be big drivers of greater accountability. Government barriers to digital health innovation will continue to drop as the FDA Precertification (Pre-Cert) Pilot Program and CMS Innovation Center open the door to innovation. At the same time, policymakers are going to be more aggressive about exploring policy changes that can speed up the time to market for tools that increase patient access, improve healthcare efficiencies, decrease provider burden and create new pathways for care delivery that don’t require hospital stays. Against this backdrop,” they assert, “it will no longer be enough to bring to market the next bright, shiny gadget. Digital health tools will need to answer for the way technology will increase access to care and narrow gaps in care and coverage. There will be increased pressure to standardize systems for advanced interoperability to help improve the way information is shared and care is administered, and to do so more quickly than ever before. In 2019, new tools and technology will begin to move from the test to market phases more rapidly in order to meet ever increasing consumer expectations and pressure from policymakers.”
Among the specific predictions the authors make are the following:
Ø Digital health innovators will need to demonstrate greater tangible results. Digital health tools have been riding the peak of the hype cycle for several years now, but 2019 will be the year that digital health will need to answer for the way technology will increase access to care and narrow gaps in care and coverage.
Ø Consumer pressure will accelerate global reformation, value-based care. Consumer demand for greater access to personalized and patient-centered care will increasingly favor those offering convenience, choice and, most importantly, cost transparency.
Ø Financial and demographic challenges will inspire new methods of care delivery. In 2018 it became clear traditional healthcare alone won't bend the cost curve, and social determinants of health must be at the forefront of care. In 2019, companies focusing on the social determinants of health and how to integrate mechanisms for providers to play a bigger role in triage, data-driven care, continuity of care and personalized action plans will find a more receptive environment.
Ø Escalating data debates will drive policy changes. In 2019, privacy and security will be top of mind, with policymakers looking to the private sector and their policy counterparts in other countries to figure out what policy changes need to be put into place to protect information sharing.
