It’s that time of year again when prognosticators and futurists compile a top 10 list for the upcoming year. This blog focuses on healthcare writ large and healthcare IT (HIT) where overlaps are common.  Given the increasing complexity of this shared environment, this top 10 list grew to 16.  This is part 2 – items 9 through 16.  Part 1 – items 1 through 8 – was published on January 29, 2025.  Please join me in welcoming 2025 with a call to action in our wonderfully challenging and opportunity rich healthcare environment.

9. Invest in virtual care and “hospitals at home”.  The concept of hospitals at home has been around for decades.  The biggest change is the technology enablement of the home environment.  RPM (remote patient monitoring) should be in your portfolio of consumer-oriented products and services.  More and more people opt for virtual interactions versus in-office interactions with their care providers.  The cost, time savings, and convenience of virtual care makes it a must.  There are advantages for providers as well – increased efficiency, reduced overhead costs, expanded reach, clinical outcomes from remote monitoring, and improved patient engagement.  A November 2024 JAMA study showed that virtual acute care at home can significantly reduce the length of hospital stays without compromising clinical outcomes.  Mortality rates were similar.  ED visits were lower but there was a higher utilization of urgent care.
10. Think more about patients and families as consumers.  All patients and families are consumers in every other aspect of their lives.  The experience in other parts of their lives has created an expectation for patients and their families.  They want similar experiences in healthcare; hence, providers need to increase the consumerization of their offerings.  Every health system must become a digital health system offering the convenience they have in non-healthcare environments.  The digital planning horizon is one of immediacy.  To succeed in a consumer-oriented increasingly digital environment, you must bring agility, mobility, flexibility, and digital ability to all your stakeholders.
11. Protect the sacred trust that patients and families have placed with providers.  Even though cybersecurity capabilities have improved, so have the tools of the bad actors.  Continued diligence and focusing on human factors is crucial.  Create or enhance a culture of security and privacy.
12. Pay attention to and combat disinformation.  Disinformation includes but is not limited to phishing, hacktivism, fake news, and social engineering.  Lies are being spread to create distrust and disharmony as part of fear campaigns.  Using digital tools to commit fraud is at an all-time high.  Make sure your sources are factual and data integrity isn’t compromised.  Provide context from all sources.  Teach your staff how to recognize all forms of disinformation.  As Stephen Covey said, “progress moves at the speed of trust”.
13. Ensure your initiatives and projects are aligned with your organization’s strategy and support your company’s Mission, Vision, and Values.  As the healthcare industry evolves, companies and people everywhere must evolve and collaborate to sustain their successes.
14.  Collaborate, coordinate, and communicate.  Do you have the singular ability to champion, innovate, and lead clinical, administrative, and financial operations alone?  No one does.  Perhaps the biggest opportunities for improvements in healthcare come from these 3 C’s with emphasis on coordination. The basis for collaboration is mutual respect and trust.  The easiest way to get people to work collaboratively is to establish shared goals.  Care is not just a provider activity.  It requires a wide range of collaborative people whose activities are effectively coordinated where communication ensures the patient understands the steps and plans for their health journey.  Ensure you know your audience and communicate clearly, concisely using easily understandable language and concepts personalized for your very diverse stakeholders: patients, their families, and friends, caregivers, payers, vendors, and myriad service companies.
15. Protect the Planet.  Think about and act based on the impact of energy consumption as you adopt the newest technologies.  New clinical modalities such as more powerful imaging devices and energy hungry information technologies such as AI and blockchain are impacting the planet.  As you technology-enable your facilities, work to make them as close to carbon neutral as you can.  For more information on how to address that for data centers, see Gartner’s Green Computing Reduces IT’s Environmental Impact
16. Do a self-assessment. Use the new year as an opportunity to inventory your life, professionally and personally.  Create a Life List (not a bucket list) of what to do with a fresh restart.  We can all be our better selves.  You may expect the best from others, but it’s more important to demand the best of yourself.  Invest in yourself.  Learn, teach, work, play, sleep, laugh, cry, talk, listen – exercise your mind and body.  Sometimes the most selfless thing you can do is to focus on your own well-being.  Become your best self, and if you fall short occasionally, be as compassionate and forgiving of yourself as you are of others.  Commit to a regular review of your life-work balance.  Adjust as necessary.  A better you makes a better us.  A better us provides better care.

Our very experienced professionals have a proven track record in provider organizations and many other companies and are comfortable being held accountable.  Our careers were based on taking responsibility for the operational outcomes of our recommendations and decisions.

We’re eager to partner with you to apply this same level of commitment to your organization.  Our goal is to collaborate closely with your teams, helping you design, implement, and support initiatives that shape a better future.  Let us help you transform challenges into opportunities, drive innovation, and create a brighter future for your organization and community.