Midmark names six biggest trends in health care for 2020

Big data, client-empowering technology and the importance of oral health will be among health care’s biggest drivers this year, Midmark predicts.

The health care equipment manufacturer named six trends expected in 2020 to significantly impact the “point of care ecosystem”—the clinic or other environment where the doctor and the patient meet.

“Arguably, the time shared between a provider and patient is the most important aspect of the health care journey,” Dr. Tom Schwieterman, Midmark’s chief medical officer, said in the announcement. Schwieterman added that “change in health care has accelerated to a point where rapid innovation is not just a business advantage, but a business imperative. There is extreme pressure on health care organizations to be at the forefront of this change to ensure valuable interaction and relationships occurring at the point of care remain intact.”

Midmark identified these six key trends that it says will shape how care is delivered in 2020:

1. New technology allows providers to capture more data at the point of care than ever before, even outside the doctor’s office. This has the potential to benefit individual patients and entire populations.
2. General practitioners, including veterinarians, are becoming more specialized and offering complex procedures. This could improve doctors’ relationships with their clients.
3. “Customer experience” is increasingly a focus in health care delivery. The higher the quality of the interaction between a patient or pet owner and their care provider, the more likely that person is to be actively engaged in their health or their pet’s health, Midmark says.
4. Patients and pet owners have access to new technology, like wearables, at-home diagnostic tests and online clinical information, which more and more puts them in charge of their own health care.
5. An increased focus on value-based care shifts risk from insurers to care providers, meaning doctors have to work more closely with their vendors and patients to deliver the best quality of care without driving costs up too much.
6. And finally, oral health is emerging as critical to overall patient health. Demand for oral health products and services has grown as it becomes clear that better dental care can improve pets’ quality of life and help them live longer.