Description

Frost & Sullivan announces exciting new research from its Transformational Health program touching on some of the most important issues in healthcare now and in the future.

This Frost & Sullivan research service presents a comprehensive analysis of the market potential and dynamics of the population health management (PHM) market in the United States. The study provides a strategic PHM roadmap to progressive health entities that aspire to practice proactive care monitoring at a community level and synthesize clinical, administrative, and financial information to improve the well-being of different populations, while taking responsibility of a value-driven reimbursement relationship. It includes the drivers, challenges, forecasts, and trends impacting the market:

Market Overview: PHM 2.0 will be Characterized by the Transition from Population Health to Precision Health Approaches.

Demographic shifts alongside rising demand for evidence-based care and risk-based contracting make PHM an increasingly critical competency for payers and providers. Technologies that provide preventative and proactive health management, especially for vulnerable, high-cost populations, have experienced rapid adoption in the recent past. Key PHM capabilities that are tailored for both private and public reimbursement models include identification, stratification, and management of high-risk populations to improve care quality, streamline costs, and augment outcomes. Overall, the need for improved clinical utility and better financial productivity remains the key driver for continued interest on PHM IT and services in the United States.

Despite its benefits, PHM faces daunting challenges. Legacy PHM strategies centered on high-cost patient populations are being replaced by a more holistic and evidence-based medical approach (PHM 2.0) that considers both high-risk and at-risk patient populations and show better promise of tangible return on investment (ROI). As a result, the scope of PHM-led intervention has been expanded from patients to other populations, namely consumers, physicians, and employees.

The ideal approach is to first identify populations, providers, or payers that are responsible for and understand regional health trends while simultaneously evaluating complex quality metrics to determine relevancy and efficacy of a PHM program. At the same time, PHM implementation should involve deciding which initiative (prevention/prediction/management of disease conditions) will save the most money while producing the greatest clinical impact. Democratization of AI technologies coupled with advanced precision medicine approaches will help achieve that goal.

Overall, this Frost & Sullivan research reveals that effective PHM requires a collaborative, team-based approach supported by a robust health information technology (IT) infrastructure that achieves both regulatory and corporate objectives. CMS has recently replaced the Medicare Shared Saving Program (MSSP) with the ‘Pathway to Success’ program which mandates value-based providers to formulate a six-year digital transformation roadmap and support them with risk-free incentives and regulatory waiver. Such revolutionary transformation is bound to pave the way for increased spending on PHM solutions. However, the implementation is critical. Successful market participants must offer machine learning-based predictive disease modeling and drive automated risk stratification that proactively identifies populations most receptive for precise intervention. The ability to benchmark patient risk profiles in real-time and develop customized health plans offers a significant competitive edge. Interoperability—for example, the ability to connect disparate data sources in a standardized manner—is another critical factor for PHM vendors.

From a business strategy standpoint, it must be acknowledged that enterprise-wide PHM programs involve long-term, phase-based business approaches between payers, providers, and health IT enterprises. All relevant stakeholders across the value chain must remain flexible on strategy, implementation, and management approaches to achieve success.