A word from Second Opinion’s Christina Farr
It has been one of those heavy travel periods, but wonderful to make stops in Houston, Nashville, Boston, and Chicago. After spending several weeks in the company of health system executives, one thing felt abundantly clear: There’s massive concern about workforce shortages plaguing healthcare. And those shortages, which we face across physicians, nurses, and other providers, are about to get worse as our population ages and a whole generation starts to retire.
There is massive enthusiasm about AI — but also with strong self-awareness that health systems aren’t set up for quick, easy adoption of new technologies. I met with executives in charge of implementation processes who noted that these timelines will not be fast – one year to sell and pilot, one to two years for implementation, and then real investment is needed to ensure the technology is being used appropriately. Investors looking to make a quick buck by chasing AI because it’s a shiny object will face a rude awakening.
Meanwhile, in the employer landscape, the sense of impending doom seems to be very real. Watch this space for upcoming features on the cost crisis, as employers face the dual pressures of rising hospital costs and specialty drug costs. Employees may be seeing their salaries go up but take-home pay is stable because of the increasing amounts going straight into healthcare they may or may not use. Hard choices will have to be made. I just heard a rumor about a Fortune 100 employer that said “no” to covering GLP-1s – and as word spreads, others will follow suit.
With crisis comes opportunity. If we look back into history, it’s only in moments where it seems like it can’t get any worse that we see real creativity in healthcare. Reference-based pricing is just one example. I’m genuinely excited to see what comes from this particular moment. Sometimes it feels in healthcare that all the incentives are stacked up to make it impossible to do the right thing. But bad incentives that raise prices can’t exist in perpetuity. There’s only so much the system can take, and if we’re not already at the limit — we’re about to surpass it.