Becker’s Hospital Review Healthcare Trends 2023

With the progressive and technology-focused year that 2022 was for healthcare, industry leaders at Becker’s Hospital Review have made strong innovative predictions for what the upcoming year will look like.

1. Virtual Healthcare now essential: Thomas Graham, MD., Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer of Kettering (Ohio) Health predicts that the virtual aspect of healthcare will become truly essential. With telehealth entering the limelight during the pandemic, an understanding of virtual care by both patients and providers became necessary. Now that people are more aware of and acquainted with telehealth, there’s a stronger opportunity to delve into virtual ICU, virtual stroke management, virtual nursing, and more. Because of evolving technology, more patients can be reached no matter where they are, and resourcing difficulties within medical staff can be lightened.

2. Advanced technology leads to more asynchronous work: Omkar Kulkarni, Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Digital Transformation Officer of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles believes that asynchronous work will begin to be more common in healthcare systems by utilizing advancing technology. It’s predicted that in these next years after the pandemic, new models will be put in place that encourage providers and administrative staff to work asynchronously and heighten productivity to the fullest extent possible.

3. Emphasis on efficiency: Lisa Prasad, Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer of Henry Ford Health (Detroit) believes that efficiency will dominate. Artificial intelligence continues to make progress, retail healthcare delivery is growing, and telemedicine and remote care are becoming more mainstream, specifically for elderly patients. Additionally, a large trending topic centers around different technologies that will concentrate on mental health challenges in the post-pandemic world.

4. Automation to help overwhelmed system: Roy Rosin, Chief Innovation Officer of Penn Medicine (Philadelphia) predicts that there will be a large focus on how to remedy overburdened care teams by examining different automation to better create efficiencies across teams. Additionally, it’s believed that there will be further concentration on high-value care by re-examining where the care takes place outside of hospitals and clinics and is, therefore, less constrained.

5. Consumption and sustainability: Jonathan Westall, Vice President of Ancillary Services at Martin Luther King Jr. Community Hospital (Los Angeles) believes that consumption and sustainability will be a key trending topic this year. Sustainability efforts in hospitals almost came to an abrupt stop during the pandemic as many items had to be disposable and single-use due to safety concerns. In the years following the pandemic, there has been an examination of what must be single-use and what can change to create less waste. As hospitals are key forces in various communities, it’s important that these sustainability efforts are looked at and implemented.