The PwC Health Research Institute released a new report outlining the top 10 issues facing the healthcare industry next year.
Here are the issues:
1. Do-it yourself healthcare, including high-tech personal medical kits, mobile apps and other wearable technology related to healthcare.
2. Going from mobile apps to medical devices, with the proliferation of approved portable medical devices going into patients' homes.
3. Balancing privacy and convenience as patients adopt digital tools and service for health information gathering.
4. High-cost patients with Medicare and Medicaid "duel eligible" status are sparking creating care delivery and management systems.
5. Putting a price on positive outcomes with specialty drugs slated to hit the market next year and increasing demand for new evidence and definitions of positive healthcare outcomes.
6. Open everything to everyone with new transparency initiatives targeting clinical trial data, real-world patient outcomes and financial relationships between physicians and pharmaceutical companies.
7. Becoming familiar with the newly insured patients to foster better care management programs and shift market strategies.
8. Expanding the physician extender role as the first line of care for many patients as physicians delegate tasks and enter into risk-based models.
9. Redefining health and well-being for millennials as the economy rebounds and employers are looking for new ways to engage and retain the "next generation" of health consumers.
10. Partner with others in the marketplace to win with open collaboration platform and non-traditional relationships to push healthcare companies out of their comfort zones towards new competitive strategies.