The 8 Healthcare Trends that will impact your sales in 2018

Last week, Jason Krantz, CEO of Definitive Healthcare, held a webinar detailing 8 trends in 2018 that will impact supplier sales to the healthcare market. I thought he did a nice job detailing what today’s hospital operator is focused on.

Click here to listen to a recording of the entire webinar:

https://www.definitivehc.com/webinars

As a National Accounts Executive, I think it is worth your time to understand these trends for three reasons:

• You will be more understanding of the challenging job your customers and prospects have.
• It will make you more conversational with executives on topics they are worried about.
• If you can help your prospects better understand or navigate any of these trends, you will be valuable to them (i.e. craft a value proposition around these trends).

Here are just a few highlights of each trend, although this summary does not do justice to Jason’s great presentation. Again, it’s worth your while to listen to the free webinar.

Artificial Intelligence
Great IDNs are already implementing A.I. in meaningful ways, and the tea leaves say there is so much more to come. For instance, Henry Ford conducted a challenge to get their system thinking
about how A.I. can help them provide better care. The Mayo Clinic uses A.I. to predict sudden death cases in children. Vanderbilt can predict patient suicides 84% of the time. With all the data
being collected, you can expect more and more A.I. opportunities around Supply Chain.

Blockchain
Sixteen percent of hospital CEOs are going to use Blockchain in 2018, and 56% by 2020, so you better start to understand what Blockchain is all about. Jason makes an emphatic case that Blockchain can help with scalability and privacy for IDNs — two topics dear to their hearts.

Telehealth and the Internet of Things (IOT)
The adoption of current devices like smartphones and wearables will continue to gain momentum and become ubiquitous in healthcare. Thanks to telehealth and IOT, access to healthcare should increase, while decreasing costs. Jason uses a great example where Emory Healthcare has been able to take out $1,500 of cost from their system per Medicare patient thanks to telehealth and the IOT.

Opioid crisis
You can’t open a newspaper or your browser and not recognize the havoc the opioid crisis is wreaking on healthcare. ER visits are up 2-3 times in many places due to opioids. This is creating a huge training gap that needs to be addressed in the United States. It’s frightening to think that 8% of doctors prescribe 50% of all opioids. It’s imperative for National Accounts Executives to understand the stress this crisis puts on IDNs and healthcare providers nationwide.

Specialty Pharma
Specialty pharmaceuticals are cratering supply chain budgets nationwide. The ever-escalating prices of these drugs continue to make cost containment a high priority. The Specialty Pharma
market was $274b in 2010, and will be $483b in 2020. You can see how that escalation can put undue stress on supply chain budgets, making supply chain leaders look everywhere for savings.

Price Transparency and the value of supply chains
In 2017, Definitive Healthcare tracked 600 M&A press releases, and the end is not in sight. The movement for transparency is a trend not going away anytime soon as providers pursue the clinically integrated supply chain. Of all the IDNs out there, 5% are classified as System IV. These are the supertankers that can truly move market share in a consolidated manner when they
decide to. Do you know who they are?

Health reform/CMS rules
Healthcare reform and CMS rules continue to evolve. That is the one thing you can count on when it comes to government programs and policies around healthcare. The complexity of
understanding and surviving in this environment takes time and effort for IDNs, and the stakes only get higher. Don’t underestimate how taxing this is on an IDN’s administration.

Consumerism
This is no longer a trend, rather a staple of operating a healthcare system today. The escalation of urgent care centers and retail clinics is not stopping anytime soon. IDNs keep stretching down Main Street to get as close as they can to patients in as low a cost-entry point as possible. Many pharma and device companies will continue to try and build a direct-to-patient relationship as well, you see that every time you turn on T.V.