Simplifying Healthcare: Revisiting 2024’s Most Notable Moments & Trends 

💬 What was one of your predictions or expectations for healthcare in 2024? And if it came true, how did it impact our industry?

At the start of this year, I shared my healthcare predictions for 2024, which covered everything from AI and pharma, to staffing and value-based care.  

I’m sure many of us were likely anticipating some of the same developments across these areas, especially with AI and other digital health technology. However, it feels like our focus has shifted away from broad implementation of technology and radical innovation in the healthcare space; instead, much of this year’s movement feels better characterized by regulation, sustainability and incremental innovation.   

Some of my most engaged LinkedIn posts this year reflect that shift—Medicaid unwinding and eligibility, telehealth innovation, Community Health Worker support, etc.—underscoring that care delivery, access to care and policy reform continue to drive attention and conversation across the industry.  

Health Tech and AI 🤖 

The landscape around AI has evolved both in and outside of healthcare over the last year, as it continues to be one of the most popular topics across our industry, the business world and society overall.  

However, the novelty (and some of the hype) seems to be wearing off, and conversation is shifting towards administrative implementation, scalability and most importantly, ethics and regulation. The impact of data security and privacy seem to be missing pieces of the conversation, and I think our focus for the foreseeable future will become around using AI to reduce administrative burden in healthcare while ensuring we are minimizing unintended consequences and harm.

The ability to use critical thinking to assess AI outputs will be vital. Right now, AI is primarily being deployed in administrative spaces in healthcare, and we’re tackling what’s “easier” and finding the quick wins that show the value in terms of efficiency of this technology. In my experience working with health organizations, many are not comfortable with mass AI adoption yet, and often hesitate to use or share data externally to train models (which was also the case prior to generative AI when working on the development of Large Language Models).

Sensitivity remains in how AI is and will be used in the clinical space, and I think while buy-in with clinicians and the work force is difficult, winning over patients will be far more demanding. Challenges with AI like bias and misinformation still exist in the technology’s current state, and we can’t afford that risk in patient care. At this point, a co-pilot role feels more appropriate in the clinical space – something that pulls together or coalesces information for clinicians to easily work with.  

On the other hand, there are some promising use cases in the R&D space, with researchers using AI to test compounds for addressing efficacy of a vaccine or drug, which only helps us achieve speed towards discovery and progress.

I’ve seen many types of technology enter the ecosystem during my time in the healthcare industry, but my opinion remains the same – we should always be adopting solutions with the appropriate, cautious lens vs. jumping immediately into the deep end. AI should continue to be adopted with a thoughtful and measured approach and scaled appropriately over time so that the impact on our patients and communities remains positive.  

In the meantime, we should be laser-focused and improving upon the digital heath tech patients and organizations are already using and responding well to, like self-scheduling portals, telehealth platforms, and health and medication mobile apps that are making healthcare more engaging and accessible. 

The Adoption of Value-based Care 🔁 

Our industry continues to march towards value across populations and programs, but I doubt we’ll see full-scale implementation in the next few years (or even before I retire).  

Despite the slower adoption rate, many are continuing to look for ways to embrace new alternative payment models (APMs), as historical models continue to challenge operations, and the historic Fee-for-Service payment model hasn’t had the ability to keep up with inflationary costs (especially in a high inflationary period).  

We continue to see new models in specialty care introduced by the CMS, and they still maintain their goal to have every Medicare enrollee in some VBC construct by 2030. Leaders in the payer space similarly share this same sentiment and optimism around the future of APM adoption.  

Encouragingly, estimates from McKinsey predict 90 million lives will be cared for under VBC models by 2027—up from 43 million in 2022—primarily due to an increase in commercial VBC adoption, greater market share of Medicare Advantage, the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) model in Medicare FFS, and the anticipated growth of specialty VBC in areas like orthopedics and oncology. Clearly we are making some progress. 

Recently, I have been helping build curriculum for organizational leadership teams around mastering VBC, defining key learning objectives, and pulling background materials – thinking about what clinical and administrative leaders need to help guide their organization through this necessary change (including comparing how we used to get paid to current and future models of payment).

Any new way of working at scale takes tremendous change management, communication and education. We can’t just tell leaders what to do. We must give them the “why and how” – why we need to do what we’re doing and how we need to do it (and not getting beyond that level of complexity). I thoroughly enjoy and am grateful for the opportunity to develop leadership curriculum that focuses on simplifying and demystifying VBC and being able to share with future leaders across my organization and the industry. 

These initiatives take time, and progress with VBC adoption will likely be incremental, but the need to think creatively and use innovative care models (including technology) to deliver better care more efficiently will continue to be at the heart of these efforts.

Workforce Shortages 🏥

Compared to last year, it feels like our focus in the healthcare workforce space has shifted from talent acquisition to talent retention.  Additionally, our conversation seems to be shifting away from pandemic-era frontline support to how AI might help address workforce shortages by augmenting (or potentially assisting) certain jobs.   

The U.S. healthcare system continues to face a critical shortage of doctors and nurses. The latest report from the Association of American Medical Colleges forecasts a physician shortfall of 13,500 to 86,000 by 2036, especially due to rising education costs. A loss like this would greatly impact the quality and access of care we’re able to deliver, so we must creatively think about how care teams are developed and continue to evolve (i.e., virtual nursing, co-pilot assistance in care management, etc.).  

And yet, as we need to continue looking for administrative efficiencies, we need to ensure that we do not adversely impact frontline caregivers who need leaders, support, and a continued focus on reducing the administrative burden they grapple with in their work.

Thinking ahead to future workforce trends, there is broader need to grow those choosing healthcare as a career in order to address the aging U.S. population, as there will be a greater number of people over the age of 65 using healthcare services and Medicare by 2050.  

Even if we address some of the workforce shortages we’re currently facing, a greater number of elderly people results in a greater number of individuals who are going to need care. Our next focus beyond acquisition and retention should be preparing and training our workforce to meet that challenge, as well as bringing innovative solutions to the table like remote patient monitoring, telehealth and tech-enabled care, hospital-at-home, etc., that help expand and extend our ability to care for our communities. 

Pharma as Culture 💊 

As I predicted at the start of 2024, GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic continued to take center stage this year (which felt reminiscent of how Prozac and SSRIs dominated conversation and the news cycle back in the 90s). However, we haven’t seen a similar level of conversation around a new set of “blockbuster” drugs like people focused on this past year. 

The phenomenon of pharmaceuticals as drivers of culture has seemingly decreased – and we’re now faced with the less glamorous and more serious conversations that we generally have in the pharma space. Rationale around cost, access, production and price will have to come front and center now that the cultural hype is fading.   

Other Notable Trends and Moments  

There are a few updates, news and events from this year I did not predict, including:   

• An important health equity milestone with the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) data standards update,   

• The rise of unbundled and on-demand healthcare and the associated risk of care fragmentation,  

• The establishment of minimum standards across federal and local levels with policies like the Biden Admin’s Global Health Security Strategy and Time is Money Initiative. 

Topics like health equity continue to be a focus of policymakers, and ensuring social factors are part of the whole-person health discussion remains vitally important. Some of this work hangs in the balance with the transition to a new administration, but we should work to ensure we do not lose the progress we’ve made over the last few decades.  

On the consumer side, there is definitely interest picking up in unbundled care, urgent care and “a la carte” coverage selection as alternatives to traditional healthcare models. Patients and populations understandably continue to grapple with cost and a resulting mindset that focuses on short-term health outcomes. With that though, comes a risk for fragmented care, lack of care coordination and loss of the ability to measure long-term health outcomes.  

These topics are not necessarily as “glamorous” or widely discussed in culture outside of healthcare, but they are often what moves the needle in our industry and serve as a place for continued discussion on improving access and outcomes. 

Looking Ahead + Final Thoughts 

Like the year before, 2024 felt like another post-pandemic year marked by a widespread focus on AI and continued non-traditional innovation – sometimes without a focus on practicality, sustainability and through the lens of staffing and payment. Looking ahead, I hope we can pivot to more practical conversations, so that we can continue to successfully implement and scale things like AI, value-based care adoption and more to bring value to our patients and the communities we serve.

Stay tuned next month for the first issue of 2025, where I’ll do a deep dive on my Big Ideas and predictions for the upcoming year in healthcare.  

Until next month (and year!).   

- Ruth 🌸  

Have an idea for a future topic or questions in the world of healthcare? I’d love to hear from you!