The Future of Healthcare: Predictions

Below is a list of some of our views about the future of healthcare. These are summary statements without explanations. Please contact us to discuss these points in more detail.

• Molecular medicine is disruptive. It's not just incrementally better science. It will radically alter the face of healthcare.
• The new science of molecular medicine will allow real cost savings.
• There will be no more blockbuster drugs; traditional pharma will be slow to react to this fact.
• Diagnostics will drive the change in healthcare. Diagnostic companies and diagnostic intellectual property will increase significantly in value.
• Diagnostic test reimbursement will shift from paying for technician time to paying for clinical utility, thereby increasing margins and causing a torrent of investment in Dx companies.
• There will be increased quantitation of diagnostic results. Quantitative measurement will replace human interpretation and enable precision in measuring outcomes. This change will drive personalized therapy in disease and allow cost effective prediction, prevention, and management of health and wellness.
• The consumer market will drive regulation in the prevention / health and wellness part of personalized medicine. There are 76 million baby boomers; they're worried and they vote.
• Four markets will open up early: organizations using diagnostics to reduce costs; consumers buying prevention; consumer products firms using molecular medicine to improve and sell their products; and clinicians using diagnostics to target therapies to improve the traditional delivery of healthcare.
• Payers and other organizations with many covered lives will embrace new diagnostics and see the value of using them to save costs and improve care. Those with long-term views will reap the largest benefits.
• A shift in trusted sources of information because of quantitative diagnostic testing will give patients options outside of the medical establishment and traditional healthcare systems. This trust shift will open up the field to many new organizations.
• Patients will become healthcare consumers, and will comparison shop, looking for their favorite brands, spending their own money when they think the results are worth it.
• New players interested in the consumer market will focus on customer experience, speed and convenience, at reasonable cost; areas not well addressed by the existing healthcare establishment.
• Companies moving into personalized medicine will be entering markets new to them. They will need capabilities beyond their traditional core competencies to enter markets and defeat potential competitors. Partnering will be an important strategic weapon.
• Channels to consumers will be extremely important. The important ones will bypass the traditional healthcare system and reach the consumer directly.
• Branding and brand quality will be a key element in partner selection in new consumer health markets.
• Privacy will be important. The more consumers learn about their genetic and health profiles, the more concerned they will be about privacy. Individuals will increasingly want to control their medical records and demand that records be electronic and portable.
• Fraud and exaggerated claims will be common and will hinder the growth of consumer-oriented personalized medicine.
• The traditional healthcare system will continue to take a narrow view of personalized medicine and will view with alarm and disparagement the entire consumer market, while not providing the services consumers want and will pay for.
• Longitudinal data will be very important. A number of companies are sitting on gold mines of data and don't know it. The ones who realize it will have a strategic and market share advantage over their competitors.
• Smart healthcare organizations will change their planning methods and horizons to deal with the disruptive changes coming; complacent organizations will miss the coming changes and will be at a disadvantage.

These predictions may seem unrelated, but in fact they arise from a group of fundamentally changing factors. They are connected, part of an overall landscape with clear drivers, and will have foreseeable impacts that can be planned for.

GHS has studied these new markets for years. We understand how the disparate pieces are related. We can help you plan. We can show you where to invest. We can help you focus your strategy to take advantage of these changes. We have insights that penetrate the fog. And we have a track record of success in this new space.