The word of the year is convergence, as the healthcare market prepares to see a greater level of collaboration between the typical industry players and new market entrants, all in the name of healthcare consumerism.
After all, the industry is arguably in need of disruption as consumer-focused care ceases to be a choice. Patient loyalty is precarious. Surveys show healthcare consumers will head to a new provider to get the medical experience and services they want.
Pinched by slim margins, healthcare organizations need to adapt to the forces of healthcare consumerism to maintain their market share, most experts agree.
But it's clear that no one can go it alone.
While incumbent healthcare players -- think health systems and payers -- have found that medicine's status quo falls short of how consumers want the industry to reflect other service sectors, new market entrants haven't had much luck, either.
For all the pomp and circumstance surrounding a company like Amazon, the IT giant had to shutter its telehealth venture in 2022. Google and Microsoft have also each experienced their own missteps entering the healthcare market.
Instead, the healthcare market might be on the precipice of something new, according to Kulleni Gebreyes, M.D., vice chair and U.S. Life Sciences and Health Care Industry leader at Deloitte.
As traditional medical institutions work to fulfill consumer demands and sophisticated technology companies navigate healthcare's unique regulatory environment, Gebreyes predicts a more symbiotic relationship between the two.
In the end, more incumbent healthcare organizations and their tech giant counterparts might succeed where they have both previously failed.
Healthcare ready to upend existing power paradigms
The medical industry has been throttling toward a more consumer-centric model for years, Gebreyes noted, but she and her colleagues at Deloitte think it's finally coming to a nexus.
"As I look at the evolution of healthcare and how healthcare organizations think about their patients, there's been great informational asymmetry where the healthcare system, the provider or the clinician knows more about what you need than you do and more about your diagnosis than you do," Gebreyes said.
Or so the provider thinks, she added.
The industry has been shifting away from that paternalistic mindset, first with calls for greater patient engagement and patient-centered care and now with an increasing emphasis on access. Consumers will switch doctors for a virtual option or to visit with someone who's more convenient or cost-effective, previous Deloitte surveys have shown.
Faced with slim margins and market pressures, health systems are working to meet patients where and how they want to be met. They're accepting that the traditional health paradigm might not be enough to get them there.
"Life science and healthcare organizations are realizing, 'We can't do this alone. We've got to do it by converging with technology, with retail, with hospitality,'" Gebreyes explained.
In 2025, we see consumerism and industry convergence leading to a new set of disruptions within healthcare that will show up in the ability to maintain or grow market share and also achieve the profit and margin that life sciences and healthcare organizations want.
Kulleni Gebreyes, M.D.Vice chair and U.S. Life Sciences and Health Care Industry leader, Deloitte
"We're super excited to say that, in 2025, we see consumerism and industry convergence leading to a new set of disruptions within healthcare that will show up in the ability to maintain or grow market share and also achieve the profit and margin that life sciences and healthcare organizations want."
Life sciences and healthcare companies are working to streamline the digital front door to link the virtual visit, the online prescription and even the prescription delivery. This isn't a novel idea, not for the behemoth companies that have come to define the world's technology marketplace.
Amazon, Best Buy, Google and Microsoft have dipped their toes one way or another into the healthcare waters, all to varying success. But in recognizing the vast complexity of the healthcare industry -- not to mention patient loyalty to an incumbent hospital brand -- these companies are increasingly seeing the value in cross-sector collaboration.
That isn't entirely shocking, considering the extreme complexity of healthcare's regulatory landscape.
Indeed, every industry has a web of rules and regulations that govern them. But healthcare's rules are particularly intricate, made more complicated by the public and private nature of the industry.
"If you have a new entrant who actually doesn't know the regulatory restrictions and how much being compliant with those restrictions is going to cost from a fundamental infrastructure, it's hard for them to really break the mold," Gebreyes noted. "They've got great ideas, great technology, but they're restricted by what healthcare has been restricted with."
These programs, underpinned by cross-sector partnerships, are possible because they leverage both the technologies innovated by leading tech companies and the regulatory expertise of incumbent health and life sciences companies.
"Now you've got convergence happening between incumbents and new entrants that allows the new entrants to disrupt old models of care, but it brings in the expertise of the incumbents who figured out how to meet all those regulatory guidelines and restrictions," Gebreyes stated.
"Why we see these alliances and collaborations working now is because you're taking what you need to know with new ways of thinking and actually creating a sustainable financial model for delivering and meeting the needs of consumers," she added.
There are still challenges, particularly in terms of building patient trust. Patients largely trust their doctors and healthcare payers -- the healthcare incumbents. But will they entrust their medical care to brands historically linked to the technology sector?
Gebreyes thinks they might, albeit that trust will likely be contingent on word of mouth and the testimonies of everyone's family and friends.
"When it comes to the incumbents and those that are new to healthcare, while there is some trust related with the brands that are part of the traditional healthcare system, what seems to matter more is when somebody patients know says, 'I've used that service and it worked for me,'" she posited.
As patient experiences with these cross-sector options become more commonplace and more satisfactory, Gebreyes predicted patient trust in the new market entrants will grow. As more people take part in the Atrium/Best Buy hospital-at-home deal, for example, the public perception is slated to grow.
Cross-sector partnerships are mostly in their infancy, so it's unclear how consumers truly will perceive them or whether they'll be effective. However, as both leading technology companies and incumbent healthcare and life sciences companies work to maintain a foothold in the marketplace, Gebreyes predicted these collaborations will become more commonplace.
"We know that all life sciences and healthcare companies are focused on improving health outcomes and making the experience of care and the ability to be well accessible to all," she concluded.
"With the trend of increased focus on understanding consumer needs and the partnerships in cross-industry convergence, we think we're going to see the benefit and the ability to improve health, lower cost and improve the experience becoming much more real, so that care is convenient and affordable for everyone."
Sara Heath has been covering news related to patient engagement and health equity since 2015.
