Another year gone means another opportunity to look back on all the biggest trends in healthcare.
For the hospital sector, this included implementing new technologies, confronting extreme weather and climate challenges, and a shift in provider/patient interactions, experts around the country told Healthcare Brew.
Here’s the rundown on the year from leading hospital execs.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Roberta Schwartz, EVP and chief innovation officer, Houston Methodist
[This year] was probably one of the first years of a little bit of return to normal on the business. We came out of Covid in 2022, and 2023 was a very big recovery year. A lot of us are using large amounts of travelers, large amounts of fill-in staff. We were still hiring large amounts of people to stabilize organizations.
[This year is the first] that I can compare to a pre-pandemic era.
Greg Wilmot, president and CEO, NeighborHealth
I think 2024 was a challenging year, and those challenges were: a lot of new demand, a lot of pressure to provide access, and [hospital systems are] still recovering to have sufficient capacity to respond to that demand. There are also some significant financial pressures on hospital systems and healthcare providers. Reimbursement for healthcare services has not kept up with the rising labor costs of healthcare, as well as the rising medical costs of healthcare, and so a lot of unanticipated financial challenges [are] facing many healthcare providers because the math is not working.
Many more folks are doing their day-to-day work, particularly in healthcare, through a smart device, communicating more virtually than in person or through phone. Emerging EHR [electronic health record] tools that allow for easier engagement between healthcare institutions, healthcare organizations, and the patient and vice versa have been really important, and we’re definitely seeing an emerging trend in expectations from consumers to be able to have easier interactions with their care provider through virtual meetings.
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Stephanie Dowart, CEO, Altius Healthcare Consulting Group
[This year] was a year where not only healthcare, but the country as well, saw inflation. When you’re seeing the inflation in supplies such as pharmaceuticals and your medical supplies as well as the salary escalation, hospitals were really grappling with those increased expenses. The labor shortages made it worse, and then the supply chain disruptions really made that all come sort of to a pinnacle. The good news is all of that was a great opportunity for some of the technological advances that we’re starting to see with artificial intelligence.
However, all of that brought another trend, which is a focus on cybersecurity and threats. With all of the technology and all the data that’s out there now, there were a lot more data breaches and a lot more investment in security.
There are two pieces [on climate and healthcare] that we saw. One, a bigger focus on emergency preparedness and understanding where the gaps were in their plans to prepare and respond to hurricanes, respond to fires, respond to climate issues.
Health equity and access is a trend that’s also occurring. There is an increase in how can we actually respond to those as a healthcare community, and what do we need to do to make sure that we’re able to have services, whether they’re remote or telehealth?