10 Healthcare Trends To Monitor in 2013

I came across the chart below and thought I would post it with my perspective on trends for next year.

1. “Accountable Care” in the form of CMS ACOs or Patient Centered Medical Homes will continue to expand.  I predict some companies will begin to provide the infrastructure such that providers don’t have to come up with the $2-4M in capital needed.
2. Integrated “Big Data” looking at pharmacy, medical, lab, AND patient reported data AND physician EMR data will be the rage to mine and use in predictive models. 
3. Consumer engagement around health will continue to be a huge focus.
4. Obesity will continue to be an issue that people struggle with and employers begin to focus more actively on managing.
5. mHealth in the form of mobile apps, connected devices, telemedicine, and remote monitoring will begin to move from the innovators to be a more standard component of the solutions with ROIs being more standard.
6. The core components of health reform will remain (regardless of who wins) and the shift of people from underinsured and uninsured into the insured pool will finally be the tipping point for provider access and push growth in the clinics and telemedicine (video and phone) world. 
7. Transparency will become something that consultants begin to mandate and try to get into contracts around pricing, claims auditing, and other services across the entire healthcare spectrum.
8. Hospitals will continue to buy physicians and look at how they can play a more dominant regional role especially outside of the urban areas. 
9. Consolidation will continue across all areas – providers, payers, pharmacy, pharma, technology.
10. Investment in healthcare will continue to outpace other industries.