Here are three areas to watch as we head into HIMSS

The US healthcare industry has often lagged other industries when it comes to modernizing. Think of the byzantine payment system, complicated regulatory barriers and reliance on face-to-face interactions that have been the hallmarks—and obstacles—for our industry for decades.

As we head into #HIMSS19 next week, what does all this mean for the health information technology sector and other players in the year ahead? Our Health Research Institute (HRI) outlined some of these opportunities and challenges in our  Top health industry issues of 2019 report. There is now robust evidence that what PwC calls the New Health Economy is kicking into gear to truly engage health consumers who are eager to embrace more convenient, digitally enabled, affordable care.

HIMSS19’s tagline of “Champions of Health Unite” correctly focuses our attention on the why behind all of this—as our ability to effectively share data in actionable, powerful ways across the healthcare spectrum will lead to better experiences and outcomes for the patient.

HRI has highlighted three top issues for the health information technology world to watch in 2019:

• Digital therapeutics and connected devices bring opportunity. In 2019, new digital therapies and connected health services will enter the market to help patients make behavioral changes, providers gain real-time therapeutic insights, and insurers and employers build new tools to more effectively manage beneficiaries’ health. While providing insight into care delivery, this emerging field also will require new data-sharing processes and payment models. And so we’re seeing innovative partnerships between pharmaceutical and medical device companies and tech companies. But this new frontier also raises questions, such as how we ensure the new data streams from mobile devices don’t overwhelm providers? How do we ensure they feel empowered?
• Your company’s new, upskilled heath worker of the future is you. In 2019, healthcare companies new and old will have to determine how to upskill or reskill employees—from the back office to the front lines and all the way up to the C-suite—to be digitally fit and nimble enough for the next tech challenge on the horizon. Many health industry players will face new competition from firms with deep talent pools such as Apple and Amazon. As many Fortune 50 technology companies are involved in healthcare as traditional healthcare companies, according to an analysis by HRI. With a tight labor market and increasing expectations from consumers, healthcare organizations should look within for workers who possess or can learn the skills needed to compete in the New Health Economy.
• Creating the Southwest Airlines of healthcare. In 2019, a health industry increasingly pressured to do more with less should take lessons from emerging companies that have figured out how to deliver value to the uninsured and underinsured—traditionally deemed unprofitable—while turning a profit.

Despite its high costs and mammoth size, the US health industry has lacked a “value line” of products or services, its own version of a Southwest Airlines that offers premier customer experiences at low, transparent costs. A lower cost value line is an important growth strategy in a healthcare ecosystem where costs can be difficult financial decisions even for the insured.

The health information technology sector can contribute to new, lower-cost delivery models to capture this market that reduce fixed costs, rethink which clinicians deliver care, address the social determinants of health and embrace transparency by posting price lists for services.

While raising many new questions, these disruptions are welcome news for a historically siloed and fragmented healthcare industry. As we shift to the more consumer-centric ecosystem of the New Health Economy, it’s clear that health information and technology professionals will play a crucial role in helping the healthcare industry as a whole harness the potential that exists. I look forward to HIMSS in Orlando next week so we can begin to answer these questions together.

#HIMSS19 #BigIdeas2019