SYSTEM SHOCK: WHAT DO THE BEST HEALTH CARE SPEAKERS SAY ARE THE INDUSTRY’S TOP CHALLENGES?

If you asked the best healthcare speakers and medical futurists, you’d hear that the biggest challenges facing health care, hospitals, doctors and medical systems today are:

• Rising healthcare costs – Medical costs continue to rise faster than inflation, putting pressure on healthcare companies, doctors and insurers. Top drivers include high drug prices, expensive new technologies, an aging population, and waste/inefficiency in the system say the best healthcare speakers.
• Access and affordability of care – Many patients, especially those who are uninsured or underinsured, struggle to access and afford quality care. Issues include high insurance premiums, high deductibles, narrow provider networks, and coverage gaps.
• Administrative burdens – Doctors, hospitals and insurers devote large resources to paperwork, prior authorizations, billing, and other administrative processes that add costs but little value.
• Staffing shortages – Shortages of nurses, primary care doctors and certain specialists are making it difficult, the best healthcare speakers point out, to deliver timely, high-quality care in many areas. Causes include aging workforce, burnout, and inadequate training capacity.
• Chronic disease management – Chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease are becoming more prevalent and drive a huge portion of healthcare spending. Models focused on prevention and active management of these conditions are still developing.
• Shift to value-based care – Many of the best healthcare speakers note that there is pressure on healthcare organizations to deliver better outcomes and efficiency while managing population health. This requires new skills and care models.
• Cybersecurity threats – Medical records and devices are vulnerable to hacking and ransomware attacks. Healthcare has lagged other industries in cybersecurity.
• Regulatory burdens – Changing regulations like privacy rules add compliance costs and uncertainty for healthcare organizations are big areas of conversation for the best healthcare speakers lately as well.
• Lack of interoperability – Systems for sharing patient data across providers are limited, hampering coordination and efficiency.