Health system leaders focused on managing costs, improved use of data

Despite industry uncertainty about the fate of healthcare, system leaders are preparing for the changes ahead in five key areas, according to a recent Premier survey.

In priority order, health system leaders are focusing on:

• managing costs, with a focus on drug spending;
• moving from meaningful use to meaningful insights;
• engaging and satisfying consumers;
• shifting toward population health, risk, and scale; and
• continuing differentiation on quality and costs.

Key findings included: intent to increase efforts to control cost of care management efforts; management of rising pharmaceutical spending; push to integrate data from disparate sources; improve interoperability of existing health technology; utilization of technology to support risk-based contracts; and investments in patient engagement initiatives.