January 14, 2025 • 17 mins
2024 was filled with upswings and downswings in the healthcare industry. Whether it was unprecedented cyberattacks, the continued rise of GLP-1 therapies, or the return of hospital volumes, healthcare leaders stayed busy. And things aren’t expected to slow down in 2025.
To give you a preview of where we may be headed, this week, hosts Rachel (Rae) Woods and Abby Burns invite five Advisory Board experts to break down what their teams will be researching in 2025 and why these topics matter for health leaders. Throughout the episode, our experts preview how health system service lines, value-based care, care variation reduction, artificial intelligence, and specialty pharmacy will change in 2025 and beyond.
Links:
- The state of the industry: What healthcare leaders need to know for 2025
- Get early access to our 2025 executive briefing
- Service lines and specialty care landing page
- Value-based care landing page
- Artificial intelligence landing page
- Hospital and health system trends landing page
- 4 common pitfalls in care standardization — and how to overcome them
Learn more about Advisory Board Fellowship
A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on www.advisory.com/RadioAdvisory.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
(gentle pensive music)
- From "Advisory Board,"
we are bringing you a "Radio Advisory,"
your weekly download on how to untangle
healthcare's most pressing challenges.
I'm Rae Woods.
- And I'm Abby Burns.
- 2024 was a big year for us,
and frankly, for the healthcare industry.
"Radio Advisory" had its biggest year yet.
(00:20):
We released our 200th episode,
surpassed 1 million downloads,
even appointed a full-time co-host.
We went on the road,we had amazing guests,
and we pulled at so many strings
to help you untangle yourmost pressing challenges.
- And there were definitely challenges.
The majority of payersand providers this year
(00:40):
were exposed to anunprecedented cyber attack.
Hospital volumes and financesdid start to bounce back,
but that doesn't mean thatmargin pressures went away,
and novel therapies and GLP-1s
continued to take the market by storm.
- Not to mention the onslaughtof healthcare announcements
in the past few weeks,
as the incoming Trumpadministration names its nominees
and appointees for keyhealthcare leadership roles.
(01:03):
- There's no sign that thingswill slow down in 2025.
So we wanna give you a sneak peek
of what Advisory Board
and "Radio Advisory" will be covering.
To do that, we're gonna hand the mic over
to five Advisory Board researchers
to share what their teams
will be diving into inthe year ahead, and why.
To start, I'll hand the mic off
to health system service lineexpert, Kaci Platternburg.
(01:26):
(gentle pensive music)
- Hi, I am Kaci Platternburg
and I study serviceline strategy and growth
for "Advisory Board."
Recently, my team and I have been having
a lot of discussions with health systems
about their service line management,
(01:46):
and that's gonna continue into 2025.
We know that service lines can be
an essential and corefunction of any hospital
or health system.
They're really the foundation
around which a lot ofcare delivery services
are organized and delivered,
and so rock solid management of them
is absolutely crucial.
This year, we've drawnout some common threads
(02:08):
around how systems arerunning at shared priorities.
These are things likeincreasing patient access
and optimizing operational efficiency.
We're also, of course, hearing about
a lot of shared challenges.
This could mean anythingfrom desiloing care
to striking the balance
between standardizingprocesses across the system,
versus customizing them basedon the facility and market.
(02:32):
So heading into 2025,my team will be focused
on helping health system leaders
solve some of their biggest
service line management challenges.
We're gonna explore the root causes
that get in the way of successful
and efficient service line management,
and study the waysorganizations are organizing
and leveraging service lines
to drive both profitability and growth.
(02:54):
This might not always look like
what you'd expect,
and so we are particularly excited
to dig into innovative growth ideas,
especially ones thataren't the most typical
or obvious approaches.
Maybe they don't rest on the laurels
of the highest revenue surgeries
or even target theusual top service lines.
We know that future health system growth
(03:15):
will need to have anemphasis on sustainability
due to continued margin compression
and the changing mixof patient complexity.
So we'll be paying attentionto ways organizations
are preparing for a future
where outpatient growth is king
and system misses table stakes.
Stepping outside of service lines,
we'll also be taking alook at how health systems
(03:35):
are approaching capital spending.
We'll share insights from our survey
of over 100 healthsystem financial leaders
about how they're planningto deploy capital in 2025,
and what's driving that decision-making.
We'll be bringing all of these teachings
on service line managementand health system growth
to several outlets next year,including written content
(03:56):
for folks to access on advisory.com,
as well as discussionsat our summit events
across the year.
Hope to see you there.
(gentle pensive music)
- I'm Clare Wirth and I leadour value-based care research.
Last year, our researchanswered this question,
(04:17):
what does good look likein value-based care?
So we developed a tool based on decades
of Advisory Board researchthat paints the VBC landscape.
We call that tool the VBC Self-Assessment,
and I'll make sure thatit's in the show notes.
What it does is it helpsprovider executives
to diagnose their progress in VBC
and start formulating a strategy
to get to their goal destination.
(04:41):
When it came to defining that destination,
we found a lot of leaders were hesitant.
They were hesitant todeepen their VBC commitment
because of a lack ofconsistently successful examples,
particularly from health systems
who have largely been leftout of the VBC conversation.
So this begs the question of how:
(05:01):
How do a health system
achieve the governance andvision, financial transformation,
and clinical transformation necessary
to generate meaningful costsavings and quality improvement?
We've been on a hunt.
We've been hunting for health systems
deep in their VBC journey withan approach worth emulating.
Not only did we find those organizations,
(05:23):
but they gave Advisory Board access
to their full leadership bench
so that we could uncover the practices
and tactics key to their success.
They told us about howthey won executive buy-in,
how they integrated VBC intosystem level decision-making,
how they negotiate risk-based contracts,
how they develop productivepartnerships with health plans,
how they make VBC visible ontheir financial statements,
(05:46):
how they make data analytics actionable
for frontline care teams, andhow they manage their network,
including engaging specialists in VBC.
We captured it all.
Even the most advanced VBC organizations
will learn from this research.
In 2025, I'm excited tobring these in-depth,
insight-rich case studies to our members.
(06:08):
We'll have these at everyAdvisory Board summit next year,
available on our website,
available for virtual andin-person presentations.
And who knows, maybe Ican convince Abby and Rae
to have us back on the pod next year
to talk more about them.
So if you wanna go from VBCdabbler to VBC powerhouse,
stay tuned for some excellentresearch to make that happen.
(06:28):
(gentle pensive music)
- Hi, my name is Paul Trigonoplos.
I'm the Director of Hospitaland Health System Research
at the Advisory Board.
I mostly look at clinical operations.
The topic that we'll beresearching next year
is care variation reduction.
Now, you might be thinking,why is that the top priority
(06:49):
for us to be researching next year?
This is a topic that's beenaround for years and years,
and for me, the interesting point
that I wanna understand next year,
and is why this is rising to the top,
is we need to figure out what,
if anything, is fundamentally new
in how systems are approachingthis evergreen problem.
There's two factors at play,which I think get at this
(07:13):
and make this an urgenttopic to understand.
First is the operatingcontext of many providers.
If we look back to 2018,2019, which is the last time
that we did substantial research here,
the operating context isjust different, right?
Finances and margins are yes, recovering,
but the waterline forcost is higher than ever.
Systems are gonna be looking to root out
any inefficiencies they can find.
(07:35):
And it's also worth noting
that there's been a lot ofmergers and acquisitions
since 2018 in the industry.
And most of the integration,if any that has happened,
sort of stopped at the backoffice efficiency front.
We're hearing a ton nowabout how organizations
are looking to shift frombeing a holding company
to being an operating company.
And clinical standardization and CVR
(07:57):
are critical pieces ofwork to do as a system
to accrue that benefit.
The other shift that has happened
is kind of the venue or the theater
of where variation opportunity exists
and how different this lookscompared to 2019 or 2020.
First, ambulatory, right?
For the median system,
ambulatory makes up overhalf of their revenue.
(08:18):
CVR back in the day wasan inpatient priority.
Now you have much more opportunity
on the outpatient and ambulatory side,
and I don't think systemsare prioritizing this enough.
There's also been a shift inhow we treat patients, right?
Moving away from DRGs andsort of towards something
like disease clustersor integrated pathways
for more complex patients,
(08:39):
that needs a different approach
to reducing and identifying variation.
So when it comes to the questions
we'll be asking next year, first, again,
anything fundamentally new
in how systems areapproaching this problem.
And if there is anything new, right,
what is making those things work?
And second, not only whatis the end goal, right,
(09:00):
but what is the pathwaythat systems can take
to get to that sort of advanced stage?
What are the steps they can take?
And for me personally,
the thing I'm actually mostexcited about is AI, right?
A lot of systems are using AI
to solve a litany of problems
and CVR's certainly on that list.
We're already hearing aboutorganizations using AI
(09:21):
to identify very smalland nuanced variation,
whether that is on a pathwayor length of stay approach,
or whether that's clinicalvariation or supply spend,
you name it, right?
I think we'll be looking for the evidence
and the use cases there as well.
(gentle pensive music)
- We'll be right backwith more "Radio Advisory"
(09:43):
after this short break.
(gentle pensive music)
(lively music)
- As healthcare becomesincreasingly complex,
organizations require leaderswho can expertly navigate
(10:04):
and adapt to rapid changes.
The Advisory Board Fellowship
is an immersive leadershiplaboratory and practice ground
where leaders are challenged
and supported by diverse industry peers,
world-class faculty and executive coaches.
Participants tackle pressing challenges,
gain fresh perspectives onadvancing critical priorities,
(10:24):
and enhance their decision-making capacity
to fulfill their organization's purpose.
Visit advisory.com/fellowship
or click the link in ourshow notes to learn more.
(gentle pensive music)
- Hi, I'm Ty Aderhold, andI lead our digital health
(10:44):
and AI research here at Advisory Board.
To regular listeners, it willcome probably as no surprise
that I will be studying AI in 2025.
It's been my main area of focus
for the better part of two years now,
and that's not changing.
What is changing, however, isthe focus of this AI research.
We're launching a new research study
(11:06):
specifically focused on how AI will change
clinical and coverage decision-making.
Study is gonna focus on how AI
could potentially better inform
these decisions that are being made
and make these processes more efficient.
But before I get too far ahead of myself,
I wanna note the emphasis on potentially.
These benefits are not a given.
(11:28):
And in fact, if we continuedown the current path
of payers, providers, andlife sciences organizations
investing in AI for thesepurposes really in silos,
I don't think the industryis gonna see those benefits.
Instead, we're just gonna have clinicians
avoiding AI supports at the point of care,
and then bots fighting botsover coverage decisions
(11:49):
on the backend.
That is why I think thisresearch is so important.
Right now, or still relatively early days
in the terms of the useof AI and these processes,
we have a chance to use this technology
to transform and improve these processes,
but that won't happen if theindustry doesn't work together,
(12:10):
and it won't happen if we justthrow AI powered automation
at the current bad processes.
So to figure this out,we're gonna be asking
a wide range of stakeholders
about their currentinvestments in their space,
their future plans,
how they're working with the partners
and the barriers they face in doing so.
And we'll be lookinghopefully for stakeholders
(12:34):
who are working together
to transform these processes with AI.
We're also gonna be pressure testing
potential future scenarios in this space,
trying to understand thedifferent possible futures
that could exist,
and what decisions or actionscould lead to thoes futures.
And frankly, that's whatI'm most excited about
(12:55):
with this research,
looking at not just atthe investments in AI
or the process improvements along the way,
but looking at the potential consequences
of those investments and whatthey could mean for the future
of these complicatedmulti-stakeholder decisions
around clinical care and around coverage.
(gentle pensive music)
(13:21):
- Hey everyone, my name is Chloe Bakst,
and I'm a research consultant
on our Life Sciences,Pharmacy, and Diagnostics team.
In 2025, our team isgoing to be digging deeper
into trends around specialty pharmacies,
focusing on how providers and health plans
are deploying theirintegrated pharmacy assets
to achieve their strategic goals.
And I'll be honest, I havebeen talking to you all
(13:43):
about drug costs for a while now,
and it doesn't look likewe're gonna stop anytime soon.
So let me quickly summarizethree big takeaways
that Advisory Board has uncovered
in our past drug market research.
First, we're movingfrom a healthcare system
defined by costsassociated with procedures
to one defined by costsassociated with drugs.
(14:05):
Surgeries are getting less expensive
while drugs are getting more expensive,
and sometimes drugs are eventaking the place of surgeries.
Here, the latest example is, of course,
how weight management medications
are impacting bariatric surgery services.
Second, the way that we currently
pay for and deliver drugs
is rife with questionable incentives.
(14:26):
Sometimes it's unclear
who actually wants to lower drug costs,
aside from employers whoare crying out for change.
And the third point, andperhaps the most important,
is that healthcare leadersare often overlooking
the role that theirpharmacy assets can play
in achieving strategic business goals.
And I wanna zoom in on what I mean
(14:46):
by strategic business goals,
because this is where ourresearch is heading next.
We've been talking for a long time
about how specialty pharmacies
are often the unsunglifeblood of hospital finances
and revenue engines for PBMs as well,
but the specialty pharmacylandscape is changing.
Growing competition andtensions in the market,
(15:07):
increasingly niche drugsand distribution networks,
challenges like 340B, and new regulations
are shifting the specialtypharmacy playing field.
Yet that focus on specialtypharmacies isn't going away.
In fact, it's changing tobe even more strategic.
Our conversations withprovider and plan leaders
have shown us that theyare starting to recognize
(15:28):
the potential of integrated pharmacies
to support success in arisk-based healthcare environment.
In other words, leadersare starting to think about
how well-managed pharmacyassets can drive down costs
and support their value-based contracts.
Roll the tape forward five, 10 years,
and maybe we're in a world
where pharmacy is automatically part
of any value-based contract.
(15:50):
We want to know what doleaders need to be doing now
to be ready for that future.
Stay tuned in 2025
for research that will go beyond naming
all the things that makespecialty pharmacy strategy hard,
and instead, call out the ways
that having the strategycan be transformative
for the future of your health system.
(gentle lively music)
(16:18):
- I hope this gave you a flavor
of what Advisory Boardresearch has in store for 2025.
And if I'm honest, we're stillonly scratching the surface
on what we'll cover.
Because remember, asalways, we are here to help.
(gentle lively music)
Next week on "Radio Advisory."
We are officially inthe full swing of 2025,
and I don't know about you,
(16:38):
but it feels like this yearhas started off at a sprint.
We're gonna focus onthree areas in particular.
We're gonna look at the upheaval
in the Medicare Advantage market,
the controversy around drug spend
and PBMs in particular,
and we're gonna talk about data,
which has become one of themost important strategic assets
healthcare organizations have,
(16:58):
but arguably also theirbiggest security risk.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
"Radio Advisory" is aproduction of Advisory Board.
This episode was producedby me, Rae Woods,
as well as Abby Burns.
The episode was edited by Katy Anderson,
with technical supportprovided by Dan Tayag,
Chris Phelps, and Joe Shrum.
Special shout out to ouramazing team of producers,
(17:21):
Chloe Bakst and Atticus Raasch.
Additional support was provided
by Leanne Elston and Erin Collins.
See you next week.
(pensive music fades)
(gentle pensive music)
- From "Advisory Board,"
we are bringing you a "Radio Advisory,"
your weekly download on how to untangle
healthcare's most pressing challenges.
I'm Rae Woods.
- And I'm Abby Burns.
- 2024 was a big year for us,
and frankly, for the healthcare industry.
"Radio Advisory" had its biggest year yet.
(00:20):
We released our 200th episode,
surpassed 1 million downloads,
even appointed a full-time co-host.
We went on the road,we had amazing guests,
and we pulled at so many strings
to help you untangle yourmost pressing challenges.
- And there were definitely challenges.
The majority of payersand providers this year
(00:40):
were exposed to anunprecedented cyber attack.
Hospital volumes and financesdid start to bounce back,
but that doesn't mean thatmargin pressures went away,
and novel therapies and GLP-1s
continued to take the market by storm.
- Not to mention the onslaughtof healthcare announcements
in the past few weeks,
as the incoming Trumpadministration names its nominees
and appointees for keyhealthcare leadership roles.
(01:03):
- There's no sign that thingswill slow down in 2025.
So we wanna give you a sneak peek
of what Advisory Board
and "Radio Advisory" will be covering.
To do that, we're gonna hand the mic over
to five Advisory Board researchers
to share what their teams
will be diving into inthe year ahead, and why.
To start, I'll hand the mic off
to health system service lineexpert, Kaci Platternburg.
(01:26):
(gentle pensive music)
- Hi, I am Kaci Platternburg
and I study serviceline strategy and growth
for "Advisory Board."
Recently, my team and I have been having
a lot of discussions with health systems
about their service line management,
(01:46):
and that's gonna continue into 2025.
We know that service lines can be
an essential and corefunction of any hospital
or health system.
They're really the foundation
around which a lot ofcare delivery services
are organized and delivered,
and so rock solid management of them
is absolutely crucial.
This year, we've drawnout some common threads
(02:08):
around how systems arerunning at shared priorities.
These are things likeincreasing patient access
and optimizing operational efficiency.
We're also, of course, hearing about
a lot of shared challenges.
This could mean anythingfrom desiloing care
to striking the balance
between standardizingprocesses across the system,
versus customizing them basedon the facility and market.
(02:32):
So heading into 2025,my team will be focused
on helping health system leaders
solve some of their biggest
service line management challenges.
We're gonna explore the root causes
that get in the way of successful
and efficient service line management,
and study the waysorganizations are organizing
and leveraging service lines
to drive both profitability and growth.
(02:54):
This might not always look like
what you'd expect,
and so we are particularly excited
to dig into innovative growth ideas,
especially ones thataren't the most typical
or obvious approaches.
Maybe they don't rest on the laurels
of the highest revenue surgeries
or even target theusual top service lines.
We know that future health system growth
(03:15):
will need to have anemphasis on sustainability
due to continued margin compression
and the changing mixof patient complexity.
So we'll be paying attentionto ways organizations
are preparing for a future
where outpatient growth is king
and system misses table stakes.
Stepping outside of service lines,
we'll also be taking alook at how health systems
(03:35):
are approaching capital spending.
We'll share insights from our survey
of over 100 healthsystem financial leaders
about how they're planningto deploy capital in 2025,
and what's driving that decision-making.
We'll be bringing all of these teachings
on service line managementand health system growth
to several outlets next year,including written content
(03:56):
for folks to access on advisory.com,
as well as discussionsat our summit events
across the year.
Hope to see you there.
(gentle pensive music)
- I'm Clare Wirth and I leadour value-based care research.
Last year, our researchanswered this question,
(04:17):
what does good look likein value-based care?
So we developed a tool based on decades
of Advisory Board researchthat paints the VBC landscape.
We call that tool the VBC Self-Assessment,
and I'll make sure thatit's in the show notes.
What it does is it helpsprovider executives
to diagnose their progress in VBC
and start formulating a strategy
to get to their goal destination.
(04:41):
When it came to defining that destination,
we found a lot of leaders were hesitant.
They were hesitant todeepen their VBC commitment
because of a lack ofconsistently successful examples,
particularly from health systems
who have largely been leftout of the VBC conversation.
So this begs the question of how:
(05:01):
How do a health system
achieve the governance andvision, financial transformation,
and clinical transformation necessary
to generate meaningful costsavings and quality improvement?
We've been on a hunt.
We've been hunting for health systems
deep in their VBC journey withan approach worth emulating.
Not only did we find those organizations,
(05:23):
but they gave Advisory Board access
to their full leadership bench
so that we could uncover the practices
and tactics key to their success.
They told us about howthey won executive buy-in,
how they integrated VBC intosystem level decision-making,
how they negotiate risk-based contracts,
how they develop productivepartnerships with health plans,
how they make VBC visible ontheir financial statements,
(05:46):
how they make data analytics actionable
for frontline care teams, andhow they manage their network,
including engaging specialists in VBC.
We captured it all.
Even the most advanced VBC organizations
will learn from this research.
In 2025, I'm excited tobring these in-depth,
insight-rich case studies to our members.
(06:08):
We'll have these at everyAdvisory Board summit next year,
available on our website,
available for virtual andin-person presentations.
And who knows, maybe Ican convince Abby and Rae
to have us back on the pod next year
to talk more about them.
So if you wanna go from VBCdabbler to VBC powerhouse,
stay tuned for some excellentresearch to make that happen.
(06:28):
(gentle pensive music)
- Hi, my name is Paul Trigonoplos.
I'm the Director of Hospitaland Health System Research
at the Advisory Board.
I mostly look at clinical operations.
The topic that we'll beresearching next year
is care variation reduction.
Now, you might be thinking,why is that the top priority
(06:49):
for us to be researching next year?
This is a topic that's beenaround for years and years,
and for me, the interesting point
that I wanna understand next year,
and is why this is rising to the top,
is we need to figure out what,
if anything, is fundamentally new
in how systems are approachingthis evergreen problem.
There's two factors at play,which I think get at this
(07:13):
and make this an urgenttopic to understand.
First is the operatingcontext of many providers.
If we look back to 2018,2019, which is the last time
that we did substantial research here,
the operating context isjust different, right?
Finances and margins are yes, recovering,
but the waterline forcost is higher than ever.
Systems are gonna be looking to root out
any inefficiencies they can find.
(07:35):
And it's also worth noting
that there's been a lot ofmergers and acquisitions
since 2018 in the industry.
And most of the integration,if any that has happened,
sort of stopped at the backoffice efficiency front.
We're hearing a ton nowabout how organizations
are looking to shift frombeing a holding company
to being an operating company.
And clinical standardization and CVR
(07:57):
are critical pieces ofwork to do as a system
to accrue that benefit.
The other shift that has happened
is kind of the venue or the theater
of where variation opportunity exists
and how different this lookscompared to 2019 or 2020.
First, ambulatory, right?
For the median system,
ambulatory makes up overhalf of their revenue.
(08:18):
CVR back in the day wasan inpatient priority.
Now you have much more opportunity
on the outpatient and ambulatory side,
and I don't think systemsare prioritizing this enough.
There's also been a shift inhow we treat patients, right?
Moving away from DRGs andsort of towards something
like disease clustersor integrated pathways
for more complex patients,
(08:39):
that needs a different approach
to reducing and identifying variation.
So when it comes to the questions
we'll be asking next year, first, again,
anything fundamentally new
in how systems areapproaching this problem.
And if there is anything new, right,
what is making those things work?
And second, not only whatis the end goal, right,
(09:00):
but what is the pathwaythat systems can take
to get to that sort of advanced stage?
What are the steps they can take?
And for me personally,
the thing I'm actually mostexcited about is AI, right?
A lot of systems are using AI
to solve a litany of problems
and CVR's certainly on that list.
We're already hearing aboutorganizations using AI
(09:21):
to identify very smalland nuanced variation,
whether that is on a pathwayor length of stay approach,
or whether that's clinicalvariation or supply spend,
you name it, right?
I think we'll be looking for the evidence
and the use cases there as well.
(gentle pensive music)
- We'll be right backwith more "Radio Advisory"
(09:43):
after this short break.
(gentle pensive music)
(lively music)
- As healthcare becomesincreasingly complex,
organizations require leaderswho can expertly navigate
(10:04):
and adapt to rapid changes.
The Advisory Board Fellowship
is an immersive leadershiplaboratory and practice ground
where leaders are challenged
and supported by diverse industry peers,
world-class faculty and executive coaches.
Participants tackle pressing challenges,
gain fresh perspectives onadvancing critical priorities,
(10:24):
and enhance their decision-making capacity
to fulfill their organization's purpose.
Visit advisory.com/fellowship
or click the link in ourshow notes to learn more.
(gentle pensive music)
- Hi, I'm Ty Aderhold, andI lead our digital health
(10:44):
and AI research here at Advisory Board.
To regular listeners, it willcome probably as no surprise
that I will be studying AI in 2025.
It's been my main area of focus
for the better part of two years now,
and that's not changing.
What is changing, however, isthe focus of this AI research.
We're launching a new research study
(11:06):
specifically focused on how AI will change
clinical and coverage decision-making.
Study is gonna focus on how AI
could potentially better inform
these decisions that are being made
and make these processes more efficient.
But before I get too far ahead of myself,
I wanna note the emphasis on potentially.
These benefits are not a given.
(11:28):
And in fact, if we continuedown the current path
of payers, providers, andlife sciences organizations
investing in AI for thesepurposes really in silos,
I don't think the industryis gonna see those benefits.
Instead, we're just gonna have clinicians
avoiding AI supports at the point of care,
and then bots fighting botsover coverage decisions
(11:49):
on the backend.
That is why I think thisresearch is so important.
Right now, or still relatively early days
in the terms of the useof AI and these processes,
we have a chance to use this technology
to transform and improve these processes,
but that won't happen if theindustry doesn't work together,
(12:10):
and it won't happen if we justthrow AI powered automation
at the current bad processes.
So to figure this out,we're gonna be asking
a wide range of stakeholders
about their currentinvestments in their space,
their future plans,
how they're working with the partners
and the barriers they face in doing so.
And we'll be lookinghopefully for stakeholders
(12:34):
who are working together
to transform these processes with AI.
We're also gonna be pressure testing
potential future scenarios in this space,
trying to understand thedifferent possible futures
that could exist,
and what decisions or actionscould lead to thoes futures.
And frankly, that's whatI'm most excited about
(12:55):
with this research,
looking at not just atthe investments in AI
or the process improvements along the way,
but looking at the potential consequences
of those investments and whatthey could mean for the future
of these complicatedmulti-stakeholder decisions
around clinical care and around coverage.
(gentle pensive music)
(13:21):
- Hey everyone, my name is Chloe Bakst,
and I'm a research consultant
on our Life Sciences,Pharmacy, and Diagnostics team.
In 2025, our team isgoing to be digging deeper
into trends around specialty pharmacies,
focusing on how providers and health plans
are deploying theirintegrated pharmacy assets
to achieve their strategic goals.
And I'll be honest, I havebeen talking to you all
(13:43):
about drug costs for a while now,
and it doesn't look likewe're gonna stop anytime soon.
So let me quickly summarizethree big takeaways
that Advisory Board has uncovered
in our past drug market research.
First, we're movingfrom a healthcare system
defined by costsassociated with procedures
to one defined by costsassociated with drugs.
(14:05):
Surgeries are getting less expensive
while drugs are getting more expensive,
and sometimes drugs are eventaking the place of surgeries.
Here, the latest example is, of course,
how weight management medications
are impacting bariatric surgery services.
Second, the way that we currently
pay for and deliver drugs
is rife with questionable incentives.
(14:26):
Sometimes it's unclear
who actually wants to lower drug costs,
aside from employers whoare crying out for change.
And the third point, andperhaps the most important,
is that healthcare leadersare often overlooking
the role that theirpharmacy assets can play
in achieving strategic business goals.
And I wanna zoom in on what I mean
(14:46):
by strategic business goals,
because this is where ourresearch is heading next.
We've been talking for a long time
about how specialty pharmacies
are often the unsunglifeblood of hospital finances
and revenue engines for PBMs as well,
but the specialty pharmacylandscape is changing.
Growing competition andtensions in the market,
(15:07):
increasingly niche drugsand distribution networks,
challenges like 340B, and new regulations
are shifting the specialtypharmacy playing field.
Yet that focus on specialtypharmacies isn't going away.
In fact, it's changing tobe even more strategic.
Our conversations withprovider and plan leaders
have shown us that theyare starting to recognize
(15:28):
the potential of integrated pharmacies
to support success in arisk-based healthcare environment.
In other words, leadersare starting to think about
how well-managed pharmacyassets can drive down costs
and support their value-based contracts.
Roll the tape forward five, 10 years,
and maybe we're in a world
where pharmacy is automatically part
of any value-based contract.
(15:50):
We want to know what doleaders need to be doing now
to be ready for that future.
Stay tuned in 2025
for research that will go beyond naming
all the things that makespecialty pharmacy strategy hard,
and instead, call out the ways
that having the strategycan be transformative
for the future of your health system.
(gentle lively music)
(16:18):
- I hope this gave you a flavor
of what Advisory Boardresearch has in store for 2025.
And if I'm honest, we're stillonly scratching the surface
on what we'll cover.
Because remember, asalways, we are here to help.
(gentle lively music)
Next week on "Radio Advisory."
We are officially inthe full swing of 2025,
and I don't know about you,
(16:38):
but it feels like this yearhas started off at a sprint.
We're gonna focus onthree areas in particular.
We're gonna look at the upheaval
in the Medicare Advantage market,
the controversy around drug spend
and PBMs in particular,
and we're gonna talk about data,
which has become one of themost important strategic assets
healthcare organizations have,
(16:58):
but arguably also theirbiggest security risk.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
"Radio Advisory" is aproduction of Advisory Board.
This episode was producedby me, Rae Woods,
as well as Abby Burns.
The episode was edited by Katy Anderson,
with technical supportprovided by Dan Tayag,
Chris Phelps, and Joe Shrum.
Special shout out to ouramazing team of producers,
(17:21):
Chloe Bakst and Atticus Raasch.
Additional support was provided
by Leanne Elston and Erin Collins.
See you next week.
(pensive music fades)
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