PwC’s Health Research Institute (HRI) regularly publishes research and analysis on issues and trends affecting healthcare. Each year, HRI publishes its annual Top Health Industry Issues Report, highlighting those issues expected to have the greatest impact on the industry. The 2016 report addresses how providers and consumers will thrive in the New Health Economy. It also offers a look back at key trends from the past decades that will help shape the coming year.
So, what will 2016 bring us? The researchers write “this will be the year that, shift by shift, visit by visit, nurses doctors and other clinicians learn to work in new ways, incorporating insights gleaned from data analysis into their treatment plan.” From the consumer side, the use of smartphones as diagnostic tools, health apps, and video consultations will change the fundamentals of how we manage our care. This will also be the year that many of us, faced with higher deductibles, will manage medical expenses with new tools and services provided by insurance companies, providers, banks and other new entrants into the marketplace. The researchers say these experiences will remind us of the way we plan for retirement, saying “in the New Health Economy, how healthcare is paid for, delivered and accessed will start to echo other industries.”
Here is the rundown of the 10 issues HRI has identified as having the greatest impact on the healthcare industry in 2016:
1. High-profile mergers and acquisitions will continue in 2016, with regulators taking center stage over how consolidation impacts consumers.
2. Goldilocks will come to drug prices as the industry searches for a drug pricing formula that is “just right.”
3. Technology and shifts in financial incentives will begin to move care literally into the palms of consumers’ hands, as we move to providing care anywhere, anytime.
4. Cybersecurity and concerns over breaches will shift attention to buttressing the security of medical devices.
5. Shouldering higher deductibles, consumers will seek help managing health spending with tools and services developed by players old and new.
6. Behavioral healthcare comes out of the shadows as employers and healthcare organizations eye behavioral healthcare as a means for keeping costs down, and consumers healthy.
7. As payment shifts from fee-for-service to value-based models, healthcare orgranizations will pursue lower-cost settings more aggressively while implementing creative approaches to distributing care.
8. New databases and database tools will allow providers and others to analyze data from many sources, providing greater insights embedded in the volume of patient data collected.
9. Similar to the rise of generic drugs 30 years ago, biosimilars, lower-cost substitutes for branded biologic drugs, are expected to begin to offset rising drug prices.
10. On the road to value-based care, healthcare systems will work to calculate the true cost of services, an exercise which may also uncover ways to become more efficient.
HRI offers free access with registration to Top Health Industry Issues Report – Thriving in the New Health Economy, as well as the accompanying infographics.