The Compass

As part of our ongoing Trends Shaping the Health Economy Research Series, we are pleased to release the 2023 Trends Shaping the Health Economy Annual Report.

As a long-time admirer of Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report, I have always thought our industry lacked an analogous, data-driven view of emerging healthcare trends. This longstanding idea became reality with the debut of the first annual Trends Shaping the Health Economy Report (“Health Economy Trends Report”) in 2021. Previous editions of the Health Economy Trends Reports concluded that:

1. healthcare is a negative-sum game;

2. every part of the health economy — from payers and providers to life sciences and new entrants — will be impacted by reduced yield.

The 2023 Health Economy Trends Report offers insight into ten data-driven secular trends that are either intensifying or emerging, revealing the importance of delivering value for money.

Supporting each highlighted trend are a handful of data stories grounded in facts about the past, along with projections about the future based upon sophisticated machine learning models applied to nationally representative data, with minimal reliance on surveys. While you may already be familiar with some of the data stories, the Health Economy Trends Reports are designed to synthesize these seemingly different data to provide greater context for every stakeholder.

I hope this Health Economy Trends Report will cause you to reflect on the future of the U.S. health economy and think critically about what each trend means for your organization. While this report is not intended to provide all the answers, you should use it as a tool to ask the right questions:

• What trends have you not considered, and how will they impact the markets that your business serves?

• How well prepared are you relative to your current (and future) competitors?

• How can understanding these trends improve your organization’s capital allocation decisions?

• How will you deliver value for money to the individuals you serve?