Amy Oliver, Marketing Manager
As 2022 comes to a close, we’re in the mood like nearly everyone else – reflections and predictions. Last week, I shared our most exciting moments of 2022 and earlier this week, Cynthia Church, our Chief Strategy Officer shared eight trends she’s predicting in the digital health space in 2023.
As a follow-up to Part 1: 2022 Exciting Moments, I’m sharing 2023 predictions from the same colleagues I chatted with in Part 1. If I had a crystal ball, I think (and HOPE!) 2023 will continue to see a focus on health equity and how digital health can help increase access to care.WHO’s Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 calls out the appropriate usage of digital technologies without leaving anyone behind, ensuring digital health equity. That’s something I think we can all agree is imperative for 2023 — and beyond.
Here’s what the business development organization at Xealth had to say when I asked them what their 2023 predictions were:
David Slifka, Senior Director, Commercial Enablement and Strategy
2023 is shaping up to be an interesting year, with potential for a few major impacts. Given Congressional control, I think that we’ll see DTx and RPM continue to be supported by CMS and even expanded. Within the health tech space, my bold prediction is that we’ll see a large tech company like Google buying a health EMR company to continue their foray into the consumer health space, likely targeting it for the data. I think there could be a real shake-up within the digital health space as a few big employers could dramatically announce changes to their digital health benefits, ushering a mad scramble by digital companies to really focus on the actual outcomes they provide, not just engagement rates. It should be quite the year!
David Claxton, Senior Director, Business Development and Strategic Accounts
My prediction for 2023 is we’ll see health systems taking platform approaches to digitally engaging their patients. There is a real need to create a digital library of all the assets that a health system possesses and be able to digitally deliver those to patients at the right time. I can look at all of my past banking statements through my bank’s mobile app. 2023 should be the year that we provide that same experience in healthcare. Patients should easily consume a video explaining their diagnosis or receive a welcome video from their provider prior to a new visit. I think we’ll see health systems getting back to the basics of consumerism in 2023… and I think that starts with platform approaches to their content.
Mike Deegan, Director, Business Development
To satisfy the increasing demand for digital health tools, I predict the continued expansion of digital strategy organizations within health systems. Multidisciplinary operational teams focused on the coordination, delivery, and monitoring of digital disruptions to traditional care models that will shape their growth or evolution. These teams will be tasked to benchmark the success of early adopters, learn from their mistakes, and in some cases, take leaps of faith to drive the innovation forward.
Joe Sedlak, Senior Vice President, Sales
Through at least the first half of next year, providers will see a continuation of many of the challenges that impacted service delivery and the cost of care in 2022. The clinical labor shortage will be top of mind for most CNOs this year. While hospitals look to rebuild their depleted workforces, many will look to deploy hybrid models of care and adopt technologies that streamline clinical workflows. The use of telehealth and remote patient monitoring (RPM) will continue to expand, albeit in more focused and valued added ways than we saw during the pandemic. From many health systems, we will see a renewed emphasis on health equity, moving beyond a buzzword toward a true organizational imperative. Finally, we will continue to see the mergers and consolidation of health systems driven by a need for greater economies of scale and as a hedge against the strengthening external market forces from the big tech companies and large payers.