Forecasting the Future of Healthcare and Technology

“In 2024, Generative AI (GAI) is poised to make significant strides in healthcare by transforming patient care, drug discovery, and medical imaging. GAI-powered tools will enable personalized treatment plans, accelerate drug development timelines, and enhance diagnostic accuracy. Additionally, GAI will continue to accelerate in the field of AI-powered diagnostic tools, leading to earlier and more accurate disease detection. These advancements will revolutionize healthcare, leading to better patient outcomes and reducing costs.”

“In 2024, as a tech-forward CIO optimistic about technology's potential impact on healthcare, I foresee generative AI revolutionizing diagnostics, treatment, and efficiency. Despite its immense potential, I acknowledge the need for cautious navigation of these waters. Challenges such as data privacy, ethics, and algorithmic biases demand serious attention. While I anticipate several steps forward with these incredible new tools in the months ahead, I also envision missteps. As we harness the benefits of generative AI, learning from both successes and setbacks will be crucial in ensuring a transformative and ethically sound future for our healthcare ecosystem.”

“Healthcare organizations will continue to find more use cases for implementing generative AI to enhance patient care and customer service, improve efficiency for providers and staff, and make business intelligence tools even smarter. At the same time, marketing, compliance, and IT security teams will forge even closer bonds as online privacy and security concerns remain top priorities.”

"2024 will be the year of AI-enabled copilots. These copilots could take the form of software that provides initial diagnoses and suggests next steps based on patients' symptoms and other inputs. These advanced systems, powered by large language models (LLMs), are poised to revolutionize tasks requiring extensive information processing, such as note-taking, preventive screening, recall management, prior authorization, and medical code billing. AI-powered copilots, designed to support medical and administrative staff, will be instrumental in streamlining these processes, significantly improving efficiency and accuracy.”

"With new AI legislation, I expect a renewed focus on 'old AI.' Additionally, we are likely to observe more instances of AI shortcomings, similar to UnitedHealth's algorithmic care denials. These kinds of mishaps often won't be intentional, but like long-term side effects of medications, they will emerge gradually as AI gets used more widely. I'm optimistic about AI's role in healthcare access. I see a shift from excitement about generative AI scribes to applications in Workforce Planning, where AI will enable specialist-patient matching based on case complexity, saving time and increasing capacity. In combination with Remote Healthcare, the 'hospital at home' and 'virtual wards' models will reduce hospital overcrowding and improve care access. I anticipate breakthroughs in biotech with generative AI, including the discovery of new drug molecules, treatments, and targeted patient populations for existing drugs."

"We will continue to see wider adoption of generative AI as the industry improves content moderation and effectively ringfencing the sources, allowing us to add more administrative use cases and advance to clinical applications. I expect this journey to take years, with risk continuing to be the guiding principle determining where and how gen AI will be used. We will see greater guardrails developed by governments and regulatory bodies, like what we are seeing with the recent European AI Blueprint. We will continue to march toward personalized medicine and the use of virtual and augmented reality applications, especially in mental health."

"Healthcare CIOs will lead the integration of LLMs into their tech infrastructure, prioritizing patient privacy. LLMs will be harnessed to unlock a new era of patient access, enabling virtual assistants to answer questions with nuanced understanding and to offer personalized health management. This will demand a delicate balance, leveraging the power of LLMs while safeguarding sensitive data. By prioritizing privacy-preserving techniques, healthcare organizations can unlock the immense potential of LLMs to revolutionize patient access and care."

"In 2024, generative AI will revolutionize patient engagement and communication despite concerns about information accuracy and privacy risks. It will offer highly personalized communication and educational materials at an unprecedented scale, tailoring content to individual clinical needs, reading levels, languages, and preferred formats. This technology will enable interactive, timely interactions with medical records, fostering continuous and widespread communication between patients and healthcare providers. Ultimately, it will strengthen patient-care team relationships, empowering providers to focus more on improving lives by minimizing administrative tasks and expanding their reach to more patients."

“I anticipate further strategic alignment of technological advancements, streamlined processes, and data-driven decision-making that will yield substantial cost savings across the board. There needs to be a focus on innovation, and it cannot be merely an aspiration; it has to be a tangible commitment to optimizing resources without compromising the quality of care using technology as the catalyst, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, predictive analytics, and automation. By understanding our business needs and using the right technology, we will play a pivotal role in reshaping our operational landscape.”

“The use of ambient technology to listen into patient-doctor encounters (with permission and necessary waivers, of course) will enable us to document, chart, and create medical notes far more efficiently and quickly. It will also reduce pajama time and, in some form, physician burnout. The same technology could also be used in more administrative settings to help create meeting minutes, identify action items, and assign them to individuals via native email and project management platforms to ensure more cohesive and efficient collaboration across multiple initiatives.”

"In 2024, we will see 10x more use of chatbots and voice AI assistants, mainly to increase operational efficiencies and save costs. This means back-office use cases, including IT, HR, and administration tasks like pre-auth, patient registration, and referrals. As health organizations gain more trust in these AI assistants, we will see the trend continue to touch patients, providing them with better access to care and health resources."

“As we venture into 2024, a strategic realignment beckons. Organizations are gearing up to champion cost savings and operational efficiency by recalibrating their technological strategies and maximizing the utility of existing applications and platforms. I foresee continued emphasis on automation, which can be a linchpin for success by streamlining processes, curbing labor costs, and delivering more value to a diminished workforce striving to work at their highest ability. The cycle of implementing and optimizing Electronic Health Records (EHRs) will continue, but I anticipate a seismic shift in focus. It is time that business solutions tailored for health care organizations catch up and work with EHRs. This paradigm shift is not just a technological transition; it's a crucial step towards fostering patient-centric and cost-effective healthcare delivery models that will emerge in 2024 and beyond.”

“The imperative to enhance efficiency and reduce costs has become increasingly central. The trend of cost reduction and efficiency enhancement is steering healthcare providers toward innovative technological solutions. This shift is driven by a dual mandate—to optimize operational processes and allocate resources judiciously while maintaining the highest standards of patient care. In the pursuit of these goals, three key technology implications are at the forefront: IT outsourcing, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and AI-driven analytics.”

“While provider schedules have become fuller over the last decade, providers are too often treating patients that are better managed in an alternative setting such as retail, virtual, or even self-directed options. To meet the impending tsunami of care demands from baby boomers, systems need to engage broad networks of care partners that can manage low acuity needs and enable health systems to open up capacity for higher acuity patients. To refill this newly unlocked capacity, organizations will look to create direct links with regional and national health plans, care navigation, and digital health companies—enabling higher acuity care to access digital “side” doors into their provider schedules.”

"2024 is setting up to be a challenging time to be a healthcare IT recruiter. Over the past 15 years, competition in staffing has steadily increased, and bill rates have continued to drop. Recruiters will be forced to adapt and evolve to compete with new technologies and a saturated market. The most passionate and efficient will succeed."

"In 2024, healthcare leaders must champion enterprise-wide horizontal thinking to transform historically fragmented, vertical patient journeys into unified consumer-centric experiences. For too long, siloed clinical, operational, and financial processes have created confusing, disconnected pathways for patients. The era of healthcare consumerism calls for breaking down internal walls to connect all touchpoints into a seamless ecosystem centered around patient needs and preferences. Leaders who can dismantle siloes through shared governance, incentives, and patient-journey mappings will be best positioned to provide consistent navigational support, user-friendly billing, and value-based care coordination. Those still trapped in outdated vertical thinking will watch customers flee to competitors offering one-stop, personalized service through advanced digital platforms and savvy patient advocates."

"I have worked tirelessly for many years to use technology to allow patients to self-serve. People have become perfectly comfortable at the self-checkout isles at their grocery stores. Why do we need to overcomplicate processes in healthcare? I predict that while it will continue to take some time, we will eventually have more and more digital and technology-focused patient interactions for Scheduling, Arriving, Paying Bills, Requesting Authorization, and interacting with providers. I’m hopeful that as long as the leading Electronic Medical Record Systems continue to improve, we will see these uses of technology become the standard for American healthcare."

"Beyond the ability to schedule virtual appointments via their smartphones, patients will seek a seamless experience that extends to their in-person visits. The digital front door will evolve to encompass comprehensive wellness services, with patients expecting recognition and rewards for maintaining good health. While not all patients may opt for AI-powered virtual assistants, the expectation is that such technology will be readily available for those who choose to leverage it. For those embracing AI tools, the accompanying app will serve as a multifaceted hub, enabling users to check lab results, manage appointments, communicate with their healthcare providers, and receive personalized care plans based on individualized factors such as genetics, lifestyle, and medical history."

"Will this be the year we offer the tools patients truly want and need (simplified and timely communication, self-scheduling) to engage in their care instead of cosmetic labels that profess 'patient centricity'? Gone (should be) the days when organizations can assume that putting out the welcome mat will equate to patients showing up. Patients' options for care will continue to grow, and organizations must adapt. We know that younger patients are already less loyal than their older counterparts, and they won't tolerate participating in archaic processes that only serve the health system. Wise vendors will include patients in the discovery and development of their services. More patient segmentation and, ultimately, more personalization will help healthcare organizations listen, learn, and adapt. In 2024, convenience for consumers wins."

"Patient portals and digital strategy are not one and the same. In 2024, healthcare organizations that don’t move beyond this mindset will fall behind as the forward thinkers acknowledge that while patient portals are a necessary evil, they can’t deliver the kind of consumer-driven experience patients, visitors and staff are looking for from their health system. Given the choice between a clunky mobile-optimized portal and the ability to open a mobile native app and use a simple voice command to schedule an appointment or access the latest protocols for COVID boosters, people will choose the mobile experience that reflects what they have in other areas of their lives. Health system leaders who keep this in mind will be better positioned for a competitive advantage in patient experience."

“Envisioning the healthcare landscape of 2024, I predict a profound transformation characterized by a heightened emphasis on seamless, patient-centric digital experiences within organizations. The Digital Front Door is poised for a comprehensive overhaul, expanding its role beyond mere appointment scheduling and telehealth services. It will metamorphose into a sophisticated platform offering personalized health insights and AI-driven care navigation. The integration of advanced Generative AI will elevate these platforms into intelligent health companions, actively guiding patients through their healthcare journey."

"We're going to see a shift into more asynchronous patient interactions. This change is driven by Gen Z and millennials, who would ten times out of ten prefer to self-serve digitally rather than call their provider. These asynchronous channels, such as chat, SMS, and even Facebook Messenger, will increasingly become the preferred mode of communication for most patients."