The Healthcare Industry: Challenges and Opportunities ◾ 17
disease. Questions about value, patient experience, population health, and overall improvement in care cannot be addressed adequately unless we can bring together diverse data sets. The Stanford Medicine 2017 Health Trends Report identified five areas in which “Data is permeating every component of the healthcare ecosystem,” as follows: ◾◾ Medical research: Access to new, diverse data and open datasets are fueling drug discovery and making clinical trials and research more efficient. ◾◾ Daily life: Wearable devices, online diagnostic tools, and genetic sequencing services hold the promise of better informed and engaged patients. ◾◾ The patient experience: Health systems are investing heavily in technology, including machine learning, which is proving as effective or more effective than human diagnosticians. ◾◾ Ongoing care: Telemedicine and health apps make it possible for physicians to see patients virtually, outside of traditional facilities for increased access and tailored care. ◾◾ Prediction and prevention: Health data is allowing doctors to build better patient profiles and predictive models to anticipate more effectively, diagnose, and treat disease.
Preventive Care Any serious consideration of value must include preventive care. Preventable diseases in adults present a significant economic burden. In the United States alone, the cost burden for four vaccine-preventable diseases among adults over the age of 65 is $15.3 billion per year; the cost burden soars to $26.3 billion when including adults ages 50 to 65. Although vaccinations are integral to promoting patient wellness, hospitals face several obstacles when implementing adult immunization initiatives. Challenges include shifting away from the historic fee-for-service (FFS) model, changing physician attitudes toward recommending vaccines, and overcoming a lack of education about the importance of preventive medicine in adults (Paavola, 2017). One way to bolster support for immunization initiatives is to educate providers on the importance of adult immunizations. Another area in which we are seeing a shift toward encouraging preventive care is through an increased focus on nutrition, exercise, and wellness,
