4 Healthcare Trends Emerge

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Vree Health’s top four healthcare trends to watch in 2014

As the ACA is fully implemented and brings changes to the way the healthcare industry runs and imagines itself, 2014 will be a year of transformations and innovations. Vree Health has participated in conversations with healthcare providers across the country to identify four key issues faced by providers in the near future.

MedCity News has published Vree Health’s findings as follows, summarized as follows.

• Healthcare reimbursement is due for a reboot
  “Healthcare systems, hospitals and providers are caught between two widely divergent business models: fee-for-service versus pay-for-performance. While dependent on the former, they must restructure their businesses to improve quality and manage costs across the entire care continuum to prepare for the latter.”
  
  The lesson: “Smart providers will focus on healthcare consumers’ needs – patients and payers alike – to build new models of care that deliver maximum value.”
   
• Healthcare technology will help drive connected care
  Changes in payment structure suppose a highly integrated healthcare system. Spurred by the HITECH Act, the adoption of electronic health records (EHR) in acute care hospitals more than tripled between 2009 and 2013. Now, healthcare organizations (HCOs) must build upon these systems to break out of their four walls and integrate with the entire community to connect with providers, patients, and populations.
  
  The lesson: “Maximize the value of information with open-ended technologies that integrate with the entire spectrum of patient-provider touch points – mobile health apps, telehealth, and medical devices – to create a consumer-friendly health and wellness ecosystem.”
   
• Growth of Accountable Care accelerates
  Growth of these systems will continue in 2014 as health reform drives toward integration. Innovative healthcare IT solutions and effective use of health data across partnering organizations – and even caregivers and patients – will be critical to accountable care’s success in reducing the operational and financial inefficiencies that plague our current system.
  
  The lesson: “ACOs must find new and effective ways to engage, educate and encourage their patient populations to become involved in preventative care.”
   
• Individual relationships with patients are increasingly important
  In 2014, patient-provider communication and relationships will be critical to economic success. According to a study in the Journal of Family Practice, physicians who score highest on measures of patient-centered communication incur lower costs in diagnostic testing, without compromising health outcomes.
  
  Innovative technologies are providing new opportunities to build and expand the patient-provider relationship through personalized experiences with the potential to drive change in patient behavior. They are allowing patients to make daily health decisions using information, motivation and regular behavioral skills advice to make a real difference in their health choices. The way patient relationships are managed throughout the care continuum may even influence patients’ ability to take control of their own health – a responsibility that too many patients today feel impotent to tackle.
  
  The lesson: “Healthcare administrators that find ways to improve the patient experience may ultimately improve their bottom line.”