Rising health care costs. Changing patient demographics. Evolving consumer expectations. New market entrants. Complex health and technology ecosystems. Health care stakeholders need to invest in value-based care, innovative care delivery models, advanced digital technologies, data interoperability, and alternative employment models to prepare for these uncertainties and build a smart health ecosystem. Here are the key conclusions regarding digital health from Deloitte’s report “2020 Global Health Care Outlook”.

Care model innovation
Patients are no longer passive participants in their health care, they are demanding transparency, convenience, access, and personalized products and services. Which elements of consumers’ experiences with today’s health care ecosystem matter the most to them?
Care model innovation is expected to manifest itself in numerous ways during 2020. Future-focused care models will likely leverage people, process, and technology to address evolving individual and group health needs.
Key Takeaways
- Improving the health of a population requires new care models and technologies that address the drivers of health, enable early diagnosis, and monitor response to treatment.
- Hospital leaders might invest more in virtual care technologies or existing facilities rather than expanding their physical footprint.
- Health care systems can also link digital offerings to strategically segmented customer experience and invest in core analytics to create a 360-degree view of the consumer, thus eliminating any operational barriers.
Digital transformation and interoperability
Despite numerous challenges, there has been considerable progress in the digital transformation of health care, which we expect will continue in 2020 and beyond. With digital finding traction, the health care systems will witness a shift in data management from storing data sets to extracting insights that can be monetized and support opportunity areas including population health management and value-based care. Amidst this growth, there are challenges to digitization in health care — posed by outdated legacy platforms, cost and complexity of new technologies, and constantly evolving business needs and scenarios — and cybersecurity will continue to remain a prime concern.

Key Takeaways
- Technologies such as cloud computing, 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) can help streamline health care delivery and align it with changing consumer preferences.
- Increased use of Data-as-a-Platform (DaaP) to extract insights from patient data, will be an area of interest for most health care players
- As virtual health care increases in capability and popularity, organizations will likely need to continue investing in security tools and services to identify risks and keep them at bay
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