We are in the second-half of 2022 and if we take a look at the new variant of COVID-19, it is clear that it isn’t going away just yet. Strict restrictions affected every industry, and huge digitization across all industries took place. To deal with this issue in the medical sector, several technological enhancements have made their way into the healthcare continuum. Take a look at some of the major healthcare trends that are more likely to follow us into 2023.
Emerging Healthcare Trends 2022-23
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Changed Epicenter
Till now, hospitals were the epicenter of patient care but soon it will be changed. As per recent reports, there is an increase in shifting care from the hospitals toward physician groups and ambulatory surgery centers. Telehealth is also one of the core trends to look for.
Physicians Group
As per the statistics shared by Definitive Healthcare, around 2.4 billion procedure claims were tracked from 2016 till the end of November 2021 of which less than a third came from a hospital facility. On the contrary, the claims percentage of physician groups increased from 42.1% to 44.6% during the same period.
Ambulatory Surgical Centers
The same trend is witnessed in ambulatory surgical centers as procedure volume is growing rapidly.
By November 2021, statistics show that more than 14.5 million patients have gone through a procedure at an ambulatory facility. The volume dropped after the pandemic hit but it has now recovered and around 94% of the patient volume was recorded in 2021 as compared to 2019.
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Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM)
Remote patient monitoring is relatively a new technology of care delivery that monitors and gathers clinical information of patients that are not in a proper clinical care setting. This method is based on digital technology that enables to capture of real-time healthcare data and transmits it to the professionals for assessment. Some of the most common gadgets are blood pressure monitors, blood glucose monitors, and much more. It is an excellent approach due to which remote adoption of remote patient monitoring setup has increased nearly 40% as compared to 2020.
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Staffing Shortages
Staffing shortages are a core concern and have affected all industries. According to the report shared by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), by the year 2034, the U.S. will have a physician shortage, ranging between 37,800 to 124,000.
The Healthcare sector is facing a significant shortage of medical providers due to plenty of reasons. Some of them include the providers getting ill with COVID and leaving the healthcare sector because of burnout. The main issue is that this problem isn’t going to be solved soon. But this issue can be overcome with the help of telehealth solution.
Another problem is the average age of the workforce. The study shows that the average age of providers is 53 years while cardiac surgeons and general practice physicians have an average age of 58. As per this data, most of the physicians will be retiring soon which could worsen the hospital staffing shortage.
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Drug Prices
High drug prices are continuously making the headlines. As per the 2021 Gallup poll, around 18 million Americans are not able to buy needed drugs. Moreover, the pandemic has caused millions of Americans to lose their job over the last two years causing more hardships and the loss of their health insurance. Higher drug price is another trend we will be witnessing over the years because of global inflation caused by the pandemic.
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Data Privacy
Data security is still a vital factor because all technological enhancements need to have a comprehensive security layer. The main goal is to protect patients’ medical data delivered online. As per Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), in the year 2021, more than 40 million patients’ records were compromised due to poor cybersecurity of inter-connected hospital devices. In the given circumstances, the healthcare industry will be looking for a reliable and secure solution like cloud-based EHR to increase security measures.
Key Takeaways
The pandemic has thrown some curveballs in the healthcare sector over the past two years and will continue to do so in the ongoing and upcoming years. To overcome these issues, the practices need to think of out-of-the-box solutions and integrate the latest technologies to meet their revenue goals.
