10 trends that will reshape healthcare in the next decade

My view on the most interesting areas for healthcare entrepreneurs, problems not solved, opportunities and areas of growth.

(1) Hospitals no longer buildings
Today, a hospital is “perceived” as a building. A place where people go to receive medical services. But this is changing. When a patient is being visited/monitored at home through a telemedicine system, where is he? At his place? At the hospital? Tomorrow, a hospital will be defined by the reach of its virtual relationships. It will be thought of as the extended community network by which its services are provided. It will no longer be a place, but a network of relationships.

(2) Commoditization of healthcare services and retail healthcare
As consumers are forced to pay more out of pocket for healthcare services and as information becomes more widely accessible, retail markets will emerge. Medical service providers will begin to compete more on price, convenience, and quality.

(3) Social entrepreneurship comes to healthcare
Social initiatives to deliver basic healthcare to the third world, undeveloped countries and under-insured citizens will blossom. Initiatives like the (RED) manifesto, micro-credits, green agendas, etc. will find its way in healthcare through vaccine and drug access programs, teaching initiatives, non-profit disease specific foundations.

(4) New players targeting healthcare
Lowcost firms, big IT companies, “green” initiatives… Entrepreneurs see healthcare as a big opportunity. Companies delivering essential services + better operations + good quality healthcare will thrive in the XXIst century. Technology will drive operational and managerial excellence.

(5) Focus on patient safety
Hospitals will focus on prevention of medical errors and improvement of patient safety at all levels of the organization. Wireless will be an enabler helping to merge and deliver information to avoid mistakes.

(6) Size and focus
Bigger hospitals as spaces to concentrate technology and achieve excellence, and “focused factories” (centers dealing with just one disease or specialty), will blossom in an effort to provide appropriate, high quality care at every level.

(7) Personalized medicine drives the agenda
We are in the midst of a fundamental, significant shift in healthcare philosophy and medical research: from a world in which we “react” to disease and illness after it has happened we will evolve into one in which we will be doing far more to “prevent” health care problems through highly personalized medicine.

(8) Bio-informatics gets respect
The billions of measurements on an individual patient that is leading us into the era of personalized medicine will need highly sophisticated computer databases and computational software.

(9) Bio-connectivity becomes the next big thing
A new generation of intelligent, Internet-connected medical devices flood the industry, providing new opportunities for monitoring and managing chronic health care conditions. Furious pace of innovation will occur here with medical devices and medical technology.

(10) Electronic signature everywhere
Electronic signature will be a pervasive element of everything done in the next ten years. Electronic prescription, medical electronic records, telemedicine, all initiatives will require strong and compliant systems to authenticate both sides of the “conversation”.