Health Evolution Summit Recap: 3 Trends for the rest of 2021
This year’s 2021 Health Evolution Summit was an energizing gathering of leaders and innovators across healthcare coming together to discuss, debate, and ideate the industry’s future. I left the event with 3 key takeaways around what might take shape in healthcare over the coming months.
1. A continued shift of care delivery towards the home
Throughout the conference, experts across healthcare spoke to the imminent need and focus on building the infrastructure, coordination and payment models to support a more holistic home-based care system. In a discussion with experts like Patrick Conway, CEO of Care Solutions at Optum, Mark McClellan, Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy, and Mona Siddiqui, SVP of Clinical Strategy and Quality at Humana, various statistics resonated with me — including that “a third of hospitalizations could be replaced by home-based care”. We discussed that, today, the industry lacks infrastructure to deliver care, reimburse, and treat at scale with current models. In order to move forward, we will need to design solutions and payment models that view care in the home longitudinally, as opposed to via discrete service models targeting disparate tenets of home-based care. This shift is a promising one that will center the home as the long term hub of patient care.
2. The shift to value is a stair-step
The industry has long thought about building a true value-based care model, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that this will happen incrementally. Today only 2% of health system revenues actually represent delegated risk. However, endeavors that have shown promise — and will likely see continued support from CMS — include ACO programs and risk-based primary care models. In other realms of care, like care in the home, it starts with FFS-based models, advancing to shared savings and then to risk on key categories of spend. As was demonstrated by the pandemic, provider organizations that embrace value early and begin orienting their organizations towards value-based outcomes will prove more resilient for the next chapter of the industry’s evolution.
3. Renewed industry focus, action and collaboration towards health equity
For years, many raised the question of health equity and of building uniform access to care. However, it is clear that these topics have appropriately received renewed prioritization over the course of the pandemic. Throughout my conversations, there was a resounding sense of focus on building models which better enable access to quality care for disadvantaged populations, especially those hardest hit by COVID-19 due to structural and economic factors. This focus has engendered collaboration among payors and providers alike to meet patients where they are and to recognize the unique needs of different communities. With tailored models and programming that center the needs of patients, this push for equitable care can actually be achieved.
As we progress towards the end of 2021, I look forward to building on these relationships to continue our mission of restoring the home as a patient’s primary point of care and towards achieving a more value-oriented and equitable healthcare system.
