But instead of reactively cutting costs, which hinders access to care and worsens health outcomes, HCO leaders should institute proactive cost optimization, change leadership, and risk management. Instead of reducing Medicare Advantage benefits, SCAN Health Plan chose to emphasize continuity of care and personalization of benefits for seniors, as its members highly value stability.

As health insurers and health systems explore new relationships, the consolidation of assets limits the ability to handle a crisis. Reduced access to services forces patients to travel farther for care — causing them to leave the brand behind, or worse, to delay care altogether. An all-time high in healthcare M&A intensifies consolidation. Financial hardship felt by health systems and standalone hospitals opens the door for private equity (PE) firms and health insurers to save the day.

Many health plans miss these opportunities, especially when there isn’t a single point of reference to track engagements. However, healthcare regulations that encourage partnerships and shared-risk approaches to care management and outcomes are slowly turning the tide. While these digital trends have yet to produce a sea change, they are moving organizations toward better member experiences: Technology is beginning to push health plans forward.

Rackspace Technology helped Arthrex build a scalable digital portal on AWS that complied with US healthcare regulations. The cloud-native ecosystem is now foundational. Containers and Kubernetes are no longer simply an addendum to enterprise cloud strategies but rather the main event. As cloud-native environments reach new levels of scale, enterprises look to revise their strategies based on cloud-native technologies by default rather than relying on separate parts of their cloud plans.

Salesforce Health Cloud unifies clinical and nonclinical data to personalize care and automate operations — all contributing to a more efficient, secure, and patient-centric healthcare system.

As AI adoption accelerates and US federal AI regulation lags, the courtroom, not Congress, serves as the primary arena for AI concerns.

Saudi Arabia imposes strict restrictions on data transfers, similar to Australia’s regulations for health records and China’s security review for overseas personal information transfers. In general, governments and organizations in regulated industries — such as healthcare, insurance, financial services, and banking — have to pay extra attention to specific industry-level regulations. Do DS constraints impact the selection of vendors and service providers?

Figure 5 Consumer Access To Health Data Is Powering The Future Health Economy Now With cloud-based health apps and services, consumers can track their health metrics in real time and even receive personalized health recommendations, helping them manage their health more effectively. Cloud-based EHR systems also allow patients to access their medical records to review their health history, lab results, and treatment plans and to share this information with different healthcare providers.

Ninety-three percent of HCOs experienced a cyberattack in the past year, and nearly 75% reported a patient care disruption due to cyberattacks. Synthetic data mimics real healthcare data while inherently fencing off protected health information. Using synthetic data bypasses long privacy approval cycles (e.g., elaborate HIPAA deidentification agreements).

What it means: Hospitals, ambulatory clinics, and specialty practices require distinct solutions due to differences in workflows, patient expectations, and regulations. Atrium Health successfully implemented a “Hospital at Home” program that combines virtual consultations, remote monitoring kits, and EHR integration to meet the unique needs of acute care while reducing costs and improving patient outcomes.