Proactive, outcomes-driven care to be a priority in the 2030s
The Digital Medicine Society says the industry needs to shift its focus to counteract spending cuts while boosting efficiency and easing staff loads.
What could – and should – healthcare look like in the 2030s? The Digital Medicine Society sees a more proactive, outcomes-based and sustainable look to the future.
The Boston-based organization, known by its acronym DiME, has compiled its visioning into a report entitled “Healthcare 2030: An Impact Thesis for the Digital Era of Medicine.” Many of the changes the group foresees are a result of both economic forces and technological development.
DiME’s report lays out a roadmap for four areas that can help the nation deal with these rising pressures, enabling both restraint in expenses and improved care.
Costs of care on the rise
Rising costs on healthcare are reaching unsustainable levels, DiME notes. A report from federal actuaries estimating that national health spending will increase by 7.1 percent in 2025, outpacing growth in the U.S. gross domestic product. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had estimated national spending on health will reach $5.6 trillion this year. Even so, the nation has achieved poor returns on its health investments, most industry observers admit.
Financial pressure will continue to grow, particularly as the federal government pursues initiatives that will cause massive cuts in Medicaid spending, greatly reduced spending on medical research and other moves that could increase the prevalence of diseases that previously were closely monitored and held in check by vaccines.
At the same time, investments are rising in artificial intelligence and digital technologies, “yet most (projects) remain siloed at pilot scale,” DiME contends. “Federal agencies have made bold pledges in AI and innovation, but industry lacks a clear path to implementation.”
The report provides a plan for using existing resources more wisely, better enabled by technology, to meet healthcare needs more efficiently. "We have already proven that digital innovation can detect cancer early, overcome the maldistribution of our clinical workforce and the patients who need them the most, and cut trial timelines,” says Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of DiME. “This blueprint shows how to take those lessons system-wide, aligning with the administration's priorities and delivering sustainable wins in prevention, personalization, outcomes and affordability."
Targeting impact areas
The organization identifies four key areas that can give the industry a better chance to meet healthcare needs in the 2030s.
Prevention. More broadly, the country needs to shift from reactive, sick care to proactive healthcare. To do so, preventive efforts will need to become “investible at scale.”
Personalization. In the next decade, care will need to meet the exact need of individuals with treatment tailored by using “diverse datasets and patient-generated health data.”
Health outcomes. Rather than measuring care in encounters or expenses, the industry needs to move to structures that enable it to measure “what truly matters – whether people are healthy, not just whether processes are followed.”
Sustainability. Because of the industry’s dependence on person-to-person care delivery, it will need to focus on “building a financially viable, workforce ready, innovation-friendly system.”
Technical drivers can support these initiatives, DiME says. Specifically, healthcare organizations to better rely on “data, compute, connectivity and communication, which form the backbone of the digital era of medicine.”
DiME debuted the thesis this week at its Healthcare 2030 Summit in Washington, where leaders from ASTP/ONC, VA, major health systems, life sciences, technology firms, payers, investors and patient groups “are convening to turn the roadmap into action,” it says. DiMe is a global nonprofit dedicated to “advancing the safe, effective, and equitable use of digital technologies to redefine healthcare and improve lives.”
Fred Bazzoli is the Editor in Chief of Health Data Management.