2012 Healthcare Predictions

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• Team-based care - Change must start where it can have the greatest impact-inside the acute care walls of hospitals at the "team" level. The idea behind accountable care organizations (ACOs) is that each industry constituency (payer, provider, physician, etc.) coordinates the care of patients more collaboratively. But this principal first needs to be true inside facility walls, where we have the most acute care and where we spend most of our healthcare dollars, before it can extend out to the community. Pilot studies have proven that team-based collaboration saves lives-and millions of dollars-through better coordination. Nurses, physicians and hospital management will need to work more collaboratively and efficiently if they want to move the needle on any of the major metrics. In 2012, we will start to see hospitals become accountable for ensuring interdepartmental efforts to coordinate care, largely motivated by patient outcomes, cost of care and patient satisfaction.

• Care Beyond Hospital Walls - Improving outcomes at a more reasonable price will require providers to
  
  connect with one another outside of the hospital setting and in meaningful ways. This includes coordinating referrals and patient data discovered in physician or clinic visits. Shared findings must be communicated across the
   
  care pathway and teams must collaborate to ensure they are on the right track to improving outcomes by impacting preventative treatment and follow-up care. In 2012, we will see increased application of mobile technologies, such as iPads and Smartphones, which will help enable this coordination in healthcare. But beyond technology, real conversations will need to cross the boundaries of physician practices, care teams, departments and hospital facilities if coordination of care is going to improve.

• "Smart" hospitals (smart ORs, smart rooms) - "Smart hospitals" will be the topic of the year. With all of the new builds and wings being constructed, there will be ample opportunity to rethink care delivery-from the ground up. Hospitals will reinvent how patient flow and business happens, leveraging new and "smart" technologies to improve the patient and family experience from check-in to discharge. Many of these advancements that improve care delivery are already being implemented by early adopters, from kiosks to Zen gardens. Old infrastructure and past investments have stood in the way of change for the majority, but in 2012 get ready to see some of these new advancements become mainstream.

• Consumer-driven healthcare - Consumers are embracing technology in every component of their lives, and healthcare is no different. Patient engagement has the power to impact patient experience and reduce unnecessary medical costs. This year patients will play an even greater role in the management of their own care-mandating technology and demanding better access to information about their health. It happened in banking; watch the same happen in healthcare in 2012.

• Vendor Partnerships - To date, hospitals have struggled to integrate systems across care processes, partially because vendors have been operating independently of one another, offering proprietary solutions to protect market share rather than improve outcomes. Moving forward, hospital systems will become more vendor agnostic and facilitate the implementation of interconnected systems. In 2012, we will likely see an increase in technology mergers, acquisitions and partnerships so that vendors can provide greater interoperability, all driven by a demand for compatibility from hospitals.

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