On the morning of June 8, Amsterdam-headquartered Royal Philips hosted a virtual roundtable for the press on its “Future Health Index 2022” report, entitled, “Healthcare hits reset: Priorities shift as healthcare leaders navigate a changed world.” Philips chief medical officer, Jan Kimpen, M.D., was joined by Helen Mertens, M.D., president and CEO of the executive board at the University Hospital Maastricht [azM] and a member of the executive board of Maastricht UMC+; and Mary Leahy, M.D., CEO of Suffern, N.Y.-headquartered Bon Secours Charity Health System. The report is based on proprietary research from 3,000 respondents across 15 countries.
One key priority for healthcare leaders is staff satisfaction and retention. A press release on the report says that “Globally, around one in three healthcare leaders (30 percent) say staff satisfaction and retention combined is a top priority. However, what is driving this priority differs from country to country. For example, in the USA and Germany staff satisfaction and retention is driven by the 'great resignation’. In India, the ever-increasing demand for more healthcare professionals is the predominant driver. Across all countries, healthcare leaders’ investments in digital technologies will help to improve the staff experience.”
During the roundtable, Mertens commented that people get sick, get burn out, but also leave healthcare. “That number [people leaving the healthcare profession] is terribly high,” she said. “In the Netherlands, we have serious concerns for the future of keeping healthcare at its high-standard quality. The Scientific Advisory Board calculated that by 2060, one out of three patients will have to work in healthcare if we still want to provide care as we do today. And that means that we have to look to alternative forms of care and get people interested in working in healthcare.” Regarding alternative forms of care, Mertens mentioned that population health will have to play a large role to prevent chronic disease. She also said that it is important to motivate staff and give them right career opportunities to make healthcare an attractive field to work in.
The release adds that “While confident in the value of data, healthcare leaders remain frustrated by ongoing barriers to effective data usage, including siloed data (51 percent) and infrastructure limitations (23 percent). With cyberattacks increasingly targeting the healthcare sector, one in five (21 percent) cite concerns about data privacy and security as a top barrier to using data to its full potential. They also say greater data security and privacy systems and protocols are the top way to strengthen their trust in predictive analytics in both clinical (38 percent) and operational (35 percent) settings.”
Leahy addressed cybersecurity in the roundtable by explaining that patients of large healthcare systems do worry about cybersecurity and how private their information is. She added that there are innovations that are easing these concerns, like cloud-based sources to store data. “And what’s very interesting for me, is using Blockchain as a way to encrypt information and then bring it down when needed,” she said. “But security and security breaches remain on everyone’s mind, and you have to be careful because it is such valuable and vulnerable information [health information] that you don’t want to fall into the wrong hands.”
Regarding analytics, the press release on the report states that “Healthcare leaders have confidence in predictive analytics with 71 percent trusting predictive analytics in clinical settings, and 72 percent in operational settings. Overall, healthcare leaders see the positive impact of predictive analytics, particularly in health outcomes, patient experience and staff experience, and more than half (56 percent) have already adopted, or are in the process of adopting, predictive analytics in some form. However, uptake remains uneven, with a marked difference in adoption among developed and emerging countries (65 percent vs. 48 percent). The FHI 2022 research also indicates even those who are furthest along in adoption of predictive analytics are not leveraging the full potential of the technology.”
Mertens largely agreed during the roundtable discussion. She commented, “I think that predictive analytics have great potential for the future of healthcare. But we have to keep in mind that this is only a helpful tool that helps patients and healthcare professionals in making well informed decisions. The predictive tool helps to see the advantages and disadvantages of certain treatments and help the patients to make a decision that fits within its own stage of life. And second thing is the use of predictive analytics in the field of health promotion and prevention. One example that predictive computer models that can indicate is the risk of getting diabetes during pregnancy. And this may improve the patient's lifestyle and eventually reduce the risk of getting chronic disease.”
Leahy, when questioned by Kimpen about if doctors are trusting AI [artificial intelligence]-powered clinical decision tools, said that “Ultimately, it’s the human decision. Although these are tools, I think my clinicians have a comfort level to a degree, knowing that they have the final say in in what choices are going to be made. We use AI every single day whether it’s looking at our genomics risk, precision medicine, or decreasing medication errors. We use AI in our imaging and help support the radiologist when they’re looking at films, to perhaps help them see things they could potentially miss.”
Finally, one other interesting highlight from the survey is health inequity. “The pandemic threw a spotlight on health inequality and healthcare leaders are responding,” the release states. “One-quarter (25 percent) see addressing health inequality as a priority today, compared to only 12 percent in 2021. Technology can play a part: two in three healthcare leaders (68 percent) agree that predictive analytics can have a positive impact on helping to reduce health disparities by providing fast and accurate insights on risk scores to help identify more vulnerable groups for proactive planning to help better manage community health issues like disease outbreaks, cancer incidences and more.”
Kimpen asked Leahy about how the experience of getting doctors on board regarding social responsibility was. She responded, “While sometimes I tend to joke and say, ‘kicking and screaming,’ it really wasn't so bad. I'm a primary care doctor, I take care of patients in the community have been doing it for more than 30 years. When I have conversations with other clinicians, [we’re] always bringing it back to what's important to the patient and how we can do a better job of taking care of the patient. And then the conversation is pretty easy from there.”
