Key Takeaways
- While synthesizing the predictions of industry leaders can inform strategy development and business operations, it is equally crucial to contextualize and critically assess the likelihood, pace of change and potential implications associated with these predictions.
- Our review of 40 2024 health economy predictions articles revealed that most predictions were concentrated on the themes of healthcare technology and healthcare consumerism, with fewer related to the themes of organizational operations and treatment paradigms.
- While predictions offer insights into stakeholder priorities in 2024, the pace at which these forecasts materialize is likely to extend beyond the year. Every payer, provider, life sciences organization and new entrant has a stake in these topics, holding the ability to drive the changes that experts predict.
- Compass+ Exclusive: What the Predictors Say vs. What the Data Reveals
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Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, researchers, analysts, consultants, financiers and executives across the health economy perennially publish predictions for the key issues and topics that will define the upcoming year. The themes underlying these predictions are the source of discussion in early January at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPM), where health economy stakeholders inaugurate the new year with press releases about M&A, capital formation, growth strategies and product launches.
Synthesizing the predictions of industry leaders can inform strategy development and business operations. However, contextualizing and thinking critically about the likelihood, rate of change and implications of these predictions is equally important. Thus, we were interested in exploring not only what leaders across the healthcare industry are predicting for the 2024 health economy, but also the trends that will ultimately influence the trajectory and implications of these projections.
Analytic Approach
To capture the key predictions industry leaders have made for the 2024 health economy, we conducted a literature review of 40 publicly available predictions articles published between October 2023 and January 2024 by a wide range of organizations, including healthcare news publications, consulting firms, provider organizations, executive op-eds and healthcare blogs. Our sources included articles from West Monroe Healthcare, KPMG, Health Payer Intelligence, The Advisory Board Company, Blue Shield California, Walgreens, McKinsey, Forbes and National Law Review, among others.
From those 40 articles, we identified roughly 200 predictions, of which 114 were included in at least two articles and, in turn, in our analysis. After creating a database of the 114 predictions, we quantified the frequency with which they were repeated across sources. We identified commonalities among the 114 predictions and ultimately grouped them into 15 core predictions.
After extracting and refining our list of the 15 most common predictions for the 2024 health economy, we grouped the predictions into four themes to further capture the key issues industry leaders are projecting will define 2024.
Findings
Our systematic review suggests that industry leaders’ predictions are concentrated across four key areas (Figure 2):
The frequency with which certain predictions were made varied widely. Most predictions were concentrated on the themes of healthcare technology and healthcare consumerism, with fewer related to the themes of organizational operations and treatment paradigms.
Compass+ Exclusive:
What the Predictors Say vs. What the Data Reveals
We also selected six predictions to explore more deeply given their timeliness and relevance to our audience. We leveraged our primary and secondary datasets to identify relevant foundational data points, understand the current state and ascertain the potential rate of change, likelihood and/or limitations of the six different predictions.
Common Prediction 1: Hospitals and healthcare organizations equipped with Al will revolutionize patient care, contributing to a more responsive and efficient healthcare system.
What the Predictors Say
Across the articles we reviewed, 65% predicted that Al — in some form — would revolutionize You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization? You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization? You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization? You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization?
You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization? You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization? You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization? You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization? You can only unlock premium content on Compass+, a subscription-based research platform for data-driven insights into trends shaping the health economy. Ready to learn how the latest trends will impact your organization?
Conclusion
While the list topics and healthcare predictions we have discussed here is not remotely exhaustive, it is fair to say that each of the topics highlighted above are top of mind for many stakeholders across the healthcare industry. Analysis suggests some of the predictions made by leaders may be more wishful thinking than projections grounded in the data. Afterall, the rate of change in healthcare very slow; GLP-1s were on the market for nearly two decades before their promise as a weight loss drug caused their use to rise rapidly over the course of two years. Whether the predictions made in the articles we reviewed materialize in the coming 12 months, it will certainly be an interesting year for healthcare technology, healthcare consumerism, healthcare organization operations and life sciences. Every payer, provider, life science company and new entrant has a stake in these topics, holding the ability to drive the changes experts predict while also facing both challenges and opportunities if these predictions do or do not come to pass. While predictions may provide insight to what is top of mind for each stakeholder group in 2024, the pace at which these predictions manifest will inevitably extend beyond this year.
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