Six Impact Trends for 2022: Health Care’s Transformation Journey Continues
// By Lindsay R. Resnick //
The ability to attract, activate, and guide consumers through health care’s labyrinth depends not only on reimagining the business of health care but building relationships of value and trust that result in inspired, confident customers.
Health care transformation was all the buzz throughout 2021. To be transformed means to be completely overhauled or reshaped to the point of being unrecognizable from a previous form. Uber, Netflix, Airbnb, and Instagram transformed. Is health care there yet? No, but as we move into 2022, here are six impact trends that will definitely reshape the future.
1. Homeward Bound: From self-care to telemedicine to DIY testing — welcome home. Propelled by the pandemic and a rapidly growing aging-in-place movement, health care delivered in the home is booming.
A leading indicator is strategies from some of the biggest health brands: United Healthcare’s wellness partnership with Peloton; Humana’s fast-growing home solutions division; Mayo Clinic’s & Kaiser’s hospital-at-home initiatives; and Teladoc, Cigna, and Optum’s “virtual first” benefit plans.
The shift in sites-of-care has been dramatic, initially led by expansion of retail, urgent, and primary care clinics. The trend has swiftly moved to care-at-home. Traditionally home health was custodial, nonmedical assistance. Now the trend includes telehealth, virtual physical therapy, in-home nurse and doctor visits, and a full complement of health services from home lab testing to “food as medicine” nutrition.