Creating a More Patient-Centric Future: Lessons Learned at the 2021 JP Morgan Health Care Conference
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Each January, San Francisco hosts a one-of-a-kind gathering of movers and shakers. Billed as the world’s largest and most informative healthcare investment symposium, the annual JP Morgan Health Care Conference attracts a unique mix of health, tech sector, and financial industry professionals. Their backgrounds may be different, but they come together with a common goal: to explore the trends and market forces that will shape healthcare in the years to come.
Not surprisingly, news about vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 dominated the conversation at this year’s virtual conference, which took place January 11-14, 2021. But other themes emerged as industry leaders looked to capitalize on lessons learned during the global pandemic. One message that came through loud and clear was a pressing need to improve the healthcare experience to create a more “patient-centric” future.
Healthcare pricing, for example, is an area typically shrouded in mystery for patients. Finding out beforehand how much a service might cost is rarely straightforward, and often frustrating. New price transparency rules from the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services task hospitals and health plans with improving the financial experience for consumers. Future innovations will empower consumers by making it easier to access and understand pricing for common procedures. The healthcare industry will need to develop new ways to integrate information from many different sources – a complex data management challenge that will require cooperation among many departments.
Pricing transparency was but one of many areas identified at the conference as critical for improving the overall patient experience. Additional priorities highlighted by conference analysts included:
Strategies for making care more affordable
The need to focus on health equity, not just healthcare, to better serve all patients and communities
The potential for expanded “virtual healthcare” options for patients and providers in the future
A push for greater consistency and clarity in public health messaging
A shift from budget-based thinking to a performance orientation in the healthcare setting
There may be no silver lining to the COVID-19 pandemic, which simultaneously caused a health services crisis, economic devastation, and great human suffering. But as the 39th annual JP Morgan Health Care Conference showed, industry innovators stand ready to apply lessons learned to improve the healthcare experience for everyone.
