Technologies such unobtrusive sensors and devices embedded in the physical environment that continuously collect data and enable autonomous detection, prediction, intervention and other intelligent support. AmI systems are context-aware, adapting to changing needs, and offering real-time support like alerts or recommendations.

AI in healthcare is revolutionizing patient care and medical research through advanced data analysis and predictive modeling. From assisting in diagnosis and treatment planning to optimizing hospital operations and drug discovery, AI technologies are enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and personalization across the healthcare spectrum.

Care management is a team-based, patient-centered approach designed to improve medical care and help patients and their caregivers more effectively manage health conditions. Key activities include care coordination, patient education, monitoring of conditions, and providing support to help patients navigate the healthcare system. Care management programs are particularly beneficial for individuals with chronic diseases or complex health needs, aiming to enhance quality of life and reduce healthcare costs.

Improving care transitions, or “handoffs”, as patients migrate from one care setting to another is a growing priority. Care transitions impact the quality of the entire patient outcome. To make care transitions seamless, critical information must be transmitted effectively and efficiently between the transferring and receiving providers. This can be a challenge, given the disparate data systems that exist.

A range of digital solutions are being developed to make care transitions consistent, high-quality and safe. These tools help to support the care teams, match patients with the right post-acute network and provide adequate support for patients and caregivers.

Empowered consumers self-diagnose, monitor, and complete treatment through apps, devices, and wearables. These solutions also alert a consumer of changes in their health state and allow them to take direct action.

Health systems have an opportunity to reduce costs and develop new revenue streams by adopting DIY solutions as part of the care experience. DIY Care options enable 24/7 access across a wide array of areas, allowing providers to improve outcomes at a lower cost and move providers into the lucrative fitness and wellness market.

Health equity means increasing opportunities for everyone to live their healthiest life possible. Health systems can, and should, do more with scalable digital solutions to make progress on these measures and more:

• 2x more Black babies die before their first birthday than white babies. 3x more Black women die of pregnancy complications than white women.
• <15% of children and families living in poverty, and with a mental health care need, receive mental health services; even fewer complete treatment.
• 57% of patients have moderate-to-high risk for at least one unmet social need. These patients have higher ED and inpatient utilization.*

Prioritizing equity is not only the right thing to do, it can also yield positive financial benefits. For every 100K underserved patients, health systems are leaving up to $36M on the table by failing to act. For example, health systems can:

• Target interventions through improved data from self-service patient intake and customer relationship management tools, social and behavioral health screening, and social and population health analytics.
• Reduce unnecessary ED visits and hospitalizations with community resource referrals and direct services, such as nutrition support.
• Increase access, capacity, and revenue by offering accessible remote monitoring, on-demand behavioral health, telemental, and tele-medication assisted treatment (MAT), and non-emergency medical transportation.

Explore Related Topics

• Employment Support

• Patient-Facing Decision Support

• Peer Support

Cancer is one of the nation’s largest healthcare expenses. According to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated 1.6 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. in 2016, and cancer care costs are expected to reach $156 billion by 2020. As the number of new oncology cases continues to rise, better health management for these patients is critical to contain costs and improve patient outcomes.

Technology such as real-time diagnostics, artificial intelligence (AI), wearable pain management devices and implanted/digestible sensors promote faster and more accurate treatment. Emerging technologies also foster cancer prevention and research by providing educational resources and interactive forums that help patients better manage their health. These tools also encourage clinical trial participation, which is essential in testing new cancer therapies. Workflow management digital solutions support the challenging flow of oncology infusion patients, improving both productivity and patient satisfaction.

Payer Intelligence encompasses tools, reference libraries, and subscription alert services that aggregate policy, compliance, and payer-related information. These tools help providers, billing teams, and revenue cycle leaders stay updated with real-time payer alerts, policies, and changes, ensuring compliance and smoother workflows. The category offers external knowledge products that support decision-making and reduce administrative burdens, improving outcomes for providers and payers.

Peer support services involve individuals who have lived experience with a particular condition providing support, encouragement, and guidance to others facing similar challenges. In healthcare, peer support specialists can assist patients with mental health issues, substance use disorders, or chronic diseases by sharing their own experiences, offering hope, and helping them navigate the recovery process. Peer support can be delivered in various settings, including hospitals, clinics, and community-based organizations, and has been shown to improve engagement in care and enhance outcomes.

Ability to integrate communication, education, care plan management etc. with a consumer’s personal health record (separate from health system EHR)

Curated from multiple sources, PHRs are portable, electronic resources of health information that consumers can own and self-manage throughout their lives.

Opportunity: Health systems leverage longitudinal and whole (medical, social, environmental) patient data enabled through PHRs - to provide an enhanced consumer experience, enhance continuity of care, lower cost of care for chronic conditions as patients get more engaged, reduce the need for repeat tests and exams, reduce readmissions and enhance patient safety.

As patients assume more out-of-pocket costs in healthcare, they’re approaching their health with a consumer mindset. To reach them effectively, providers must deliver a positive patient experience—both to increase revenue and boost brand loyalty.

To do so, healthcare providers are increasingly using digital technologies to deliver more personalized patient experiences—from patient-provider messaging to online tools that deliver custom content and recommendations based on patient preferences and conditions. Analytics, marketing automation, and personalization technologies are also being used to capture device, location, and browsing preferences. These tools help providers target their communications to a patient’s specific condition and preferences, such as recommending personalized online educational content, online forums and healthy recipes.

The market is saturated with wellness programs and platforms. Technologies range to span across the population--from supporting healthy to those with pre-chronic conditions--with the promise of being able to change behavior to support healthier lifestyles. Increasingly, the concept of wellness is extending beyond diet and exercise to include mental health and financial stability.

Precision medicine—the practice of targeting patient treatment and prevention strategies based on genetic, social and behavioral characteristics—has the potential to revolutionize healthcare. Advances in both precision medicine and genomics research have transformed disease treatment in the last several years, making precision medicine ripe for innovation. Examples include:

• Rapidly declining costs: The cost of sequencing a human genome has dropped from $1 billion to $1,000 in 15 years. As a result, health systems across the country are increasingly adopting genomics for commercial use.
• Better technology: Thanks to big data, we can store, manage, search and analyze large amounts of complex data from multiple sources, privately and securely.
• More use cases: Precision medicine treatment has nearly tripled over the last decade. Use cases now span nearly all health system service lines.
• More clinical use: While the proof points of precision medicine are still being defined, its use in cancer care and drug treatment is increasingly becoming standard.

Technology innovations have fueled growing interest in the promise of precision medicine. A variety of companies now offer capabilities such as high-speed computing and faster, more affordable sequencing. Such groundbreaking solutions only offer more opportunities to better identify and act on health risks, provide earlier diagnosis, suggest practical strategies, and focus therapy.

Timely access to healthcare is vital to effective patient care. It’s also a key priority in healthcare reform, value-based care, and population health management. Today’s consumers expect more, so patient experience is more important than ever to drive patient acquisition, network retention and loyalty. Health systems and provider organizations must go beyond traditional care models and adopt innovative strategies to retain patients and enhance satisfaction and loyalty.

Virtual Health is a broad term meant to encompass traditional terms such as "telemedicine" and "telehealth" as well as lean in to emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Voice, the Internet of Things (IoT), Predictive Analytics, and even Virtual Reality. These maturing and emerging technologies to deliver care offer unprecedented opportunities to both consumers and health systems. For consumers, benefits can include increased access, greater convenience, personalized experience, improved communication, and reduced costs. For health systems, benefits can include growth, retention, improved margins on at-risk populations, improved utilization of providers and facilities, reduced wait times, expanded markets, differentiation, and more.