Hearing it from the best health care speakers and medical futurists, the biggest challenges faced by healthcare companies include:
- Rising costs – The costs of providing services, from drug prices to medical equipment to staff wages, continue to rise faster than inflation. Per the best health care speakers, it puts financial pressure on companies to cut costs while maintaining quality.
- Regulatory compliance – Medical services is a highly regulated industry. Keeping up with changing regulations and reporting requirements from multiple agencies (FDA, CMS, OSHA etc.) is a major undertaking. Fines for non-compliance can be steep.
- Labor shortages – There is a shortage of workers the best health care speakers tell us from physicians to nurses to aides. An aging population requires more healthcare staff just as many are retiring. Recruiting and retaining talent is difficult.
- Adopting new technologies – Emerging technologies like telehealth, AI, genomic testing, robotic surgery, etc. require large investments and training. However, not adopting these technologies can also put a company behind the competition.
- Cybersecurity threats – As you might imagine, healthcare records and data are highly valuable on the black market. Companies must vigorously guard against hacking and ransomware attacks which compromise patient privacy the best health care speakers remind.
- Shift to value-based care – Payers are pushing providers to deliver value and quality versus sheer quantity of services. This requires a transition in business models, coordination of care, and new metrics.
- Demographic shifts – The aging population increases demand for services while shifts in insurance coverage and bad debt impact revenue streams. Adapting to demographic changes requires foresight.
All these factors converge to make strategic planning and change management very complex for companies. Like today’s best health care speakers observe, it’s a multifaceted problem.