After a year defined by unpredictability, it may seem like a waste of time to anticipate what 2021 will bring.
After all, no one could have forecast the total digital revolution that has taken the health care field by storm over the past 10 months or so. In an industry that has traditionally resisted digital innovation, the transition to virtual care and consumer adoption of telehealth, which skyrocketed by 400% in the period between the close of 2019 and April 2020, has surprised even the savviest prognosticators.
You could argue that ten years worth of change has taken place in less than a year, and in many ways, health care is all but unrecognizable from what it was in March 2020.
Whatever else the new year may bring, it seems clear that digital health is here to stay, with health systems continuing to lean on virtual solutions even as the threat of the pandemic is neutralized by vaccine distribution. Here are six things you can expect to see as health care navigates the new normal.
|Big tech, Big everything getting into health care. Or will they?
Amazon, Alphabet and Apple all made deals in 2019 to purchase digital health startups, and those health care arms saw rapid growth this year, along with those from other Big Tech companies like Zoom and Microsoft jumping in with new health care products and features. Partnerships between Big Tech and health care organizations dominated the newswire, and subtrend mergers and acquisitions activity has picked up and will continue to. But how will the recent announcement that Haven will disband after just three years impact this trend?
Additionally, Big Tech has been in the news for other reasons recently, as leading execs have come under scrutiny for data, privacy and security issues — most recently testifying before the House Antitrust Subcommittee for an investigation into misuse of data, among other concerns — significant concerns for the health care field.
|Beyond telemedicine
Telemedicine was the finger in the dyke at the beginning of pandemic panic to keep the dam from breaking, with health care providers grabbing whatever came to hand, encouraged by relaxed HIPAA regulations. But as the dust settles, telemedicine is emerging as the commodity that it is, and value-add services are going to be the differentiating factors in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Offerings like remote patient monitoring and asynchronous communication, initially considered "nice-to-haves," are becoming standard offerings as health care providers see their value for continuous care beyond COVID.
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