Healthcare executive leaders identified leveraging data, particularly clinical data, to manage patients’ health, population health services and value-based payments as the top challenges they will face in the coming year, according to a survey by the Healthcare Executive Group (HCEG).
HCEG released its Top 10 list of critical opportunities, challenges and issues in healthcare during the organization’s 30th Annual Forum. Executives from payer, provider and technology partner organizations were presented with a list of over 25 topics selected by the HCEG board of directors and other thought leaders. The list was augmented by the 2018 Industry Pulse Survey. Roundtable discussions hosted during the Forum amongst the 100-plus attendees and invited industry experts allowed the topics to be explored and expounded upon, prior to a digital ranking that culminated in the 2019 HCEG Top 10.
In last year’s Top 10 list, healthcare executives ranked clinical and data analytics as the top challenge, followed by population health services organizations and then value-based payments. In this year’s list, Total Consumer Health moved up from five to three and Cybersecurity moved down from five to 10.
The Top 10 challenges, as identified by survey respondents, are:
Data & Analytics: Leveraging data (especially clinical) to manage health and drive individual, provider and payer decisions.
Total Consumer Health: Improving members' overall medical, social, financial, and environmental well-being.
Population Health Services: Operationalizing community-based health strategy, chronic care management, driving clinical integration, and addressing barriers to health such as social determinants.
Value-based Payments: Transitioning to and targeting specific medical conditions to manage cost and improve quality of care.
The Digital Healthcare Organization: HSAs, portals, patient literacy, cost transparency, digital payments, CRM, wearables and other patient-generated data, health monitoring, and omni-channel access/distribution.
Rising Pharmacy Costs: Implementing strategies to address growth of pharma costs along with benefits to quality of care and total healthcare costs.
External Market Disruption: New players like Amazon, Chase, Apple, Walmart, and Google.
Operational Effectiveness: Implementing lean quality programs, process efficiency (with new core business models), robotics automation, revenue cycle management, real-time/near-time point of sales transactions, etc.
Opioid Management: Developing strategies for identifying and supporting individuals and populations struggling with substance abuse/addiction or at risk of addiction.
Cybersecurity: Protecting the privacy and security of consumer information to maintain consumer trust in sharing data.
“Selecting and ranking healthcare issues is always a challenge as we are in a very critical and dynamic stage in healthcare,” Ferris W. Taylor, HCEG executive director said in a statement. “Everything seems important. Particularly issue #11 Healthcare Policy Reform and issue #12 Precision/Personalized Medicine. More than a handful of HCEG members were surprised that these topics did not make the Top 10. HCEG plans to further explore the reasoning through facilitated discussions at upcoming events and within the HCEG digital community. It’s a compliment to the HCEG members that we reached an agreement on these 10 critical and actionable issues.”
