The outlook:

Health equity is a top concern among health care executives and organizations realize that they must close the gaps in health disparities as employers, community members, and advocates for change. But what is health equity and why does it matter? It is an opportunity to achieve an overall state of well-being encompassing clinical, mental, social, emotional, physical, and spiritual health that is influenced by not just health care, but also social, economic, and environmental factors. Unfortunately, structural racism and bias, deep inequities in the drivers of health, and structural flaws in the health system have contributed to widespread disparities and discrimination preventing certain population segments from achieving well-being. Although not a new finding, health equity has been more in the spotlight as COVID-19 impacted minority groups who experienced several barriers leading to poor health outcomes.

Key takeaways:

• While specific contributors to a country or region’s health inequities vary, many are shared – for example, equal access to health care, culture traditions and perceptions, regulations and policies, and consumer trust.
• Deloitte established the Deloitte Health Equity Institutes (DHEI) in 2021 dedicated to creating public good through community collaboration and investment, data and analytics expertise, and knowledge development. Learn more about the institutes here.
• COVID-19 advanced health equity initiatives by making health a political priority and health equity part of the agenda.

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The outlook:

The burden of mental health and behavioral health disorders on the global economy is large and complex, yet underrecognized. For decades, mental health care has been under-resourced. It is still stigmatized and regarded as shameful in many parts of the world. That said, the COVID-19 pandemic’s detrimental impacts have elevated mental and behavioral health on the political and social agenda of many nations. The health, social and financial stressors from the pandemic have however, unveiled the ubiquitous lack of access to timely, high-quality, and affordable mental health services worldwide. How are we responding? It is time for some urgent calls to actions.

Key takeaways:

• Existing mental health providers, technology giants and disruptive innovators are working independently and collaboratively with health care providers, insurers, governments, and academic institutions to advance digital solutions that address various mental health conditions.
• By 2030, mental illness costs are expected to reach more than $6 trillion annually.
• Greater public awareness, increasing political attention, and growing emphasis on employer and government involvement are providing unprecedented opportunities to amplify and act on important access and health equity issues.
• Digital technologies have a great potential to transform global mental and behavioral health systems to be more accessible, affordable, scalable, and fit-for-purpose.

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The outlook:

The health care ecosystem is witnessing an unprecedented growth of digital medicine products, evidence-based software, and hardware products. Building on greater scientific discoveries, transformed clinical trial structures, digital medicines and other innovations are dramatically advancing the way we diagnose and treat different diseases. Organizations are using insights derived from interoperable data and platforms supported by deep learning capabilities and behavioral research to shape consumer interactions. But scientific discovery, development and commercialization is expensive, especially for personalized therapies. Health care leaders need to balance the benefits of medical technology innovation with the practicalities of controlling health care spending.

Key takeaways:

• Advances in medical science are being propelled by significant investment and research across the public and private sectors – bringing new innovations to the masses, and driving more predictive, preventative, personalized, and participatory medicine.
• Health care organizations are deploying data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), virtual care and other technologies to shift health care towards a future where medicine is more personalized, enable real-time care interventions, and provide behavioral nudges.
• Vaccine developers are using a range of technologies—from the tried and tested to completely novel ones such as mRNA—to prevent severity of the impact, hospitalization, and deaths.
• The high Research and Development (R&D) cost of new immunotherapies, digital medicine products, and personalized medicine is a significant point of concern and places many promising innovations beyond the reach of the poor and middle-class.

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The outlook:

While the pandemic exposed the existing vulnerabilities of public health systems putting the public health workforce under an insurmountable amount of stress, it is also proving to be a catalyst to reimagine the future of public health. The pandemic has awakened governments and stakeholders of the inherent challenges of public health systems and what needs to be done to achieve drastically improved health outcomes.

There is an unquestionable need to reimagine and transform the struggling and constrained public health systems into ones that are human-centered, inclusive, and resilient to future shocks. Reimagining the future of public health will require to forge new partnerships across public and private health care providers, new sources of investment for the wellness of communities, fresh market entrants bringing in diverse skills and expertise, and taking significant strides for digitizing public health. The challenge is enormous, but so is the opportunity.

Key takeaways:

• Public health systems face persistent clinical, financial, and technology challenges across the service ecosystem – all exacerbated during the pandemic.
• COVID-19 ignited the growing recognition of the need to invest in population health. Strengthening existing and establishing new models of collaboration across professional, institutional, and organizational boundaries is critical to help improve healthcare infrastructures.
• Digital technologies – from targeted applications to entire smart cities are playing an important role in the transformation of public health systems amidst the global crisis.
• Health care systems will require to source investments and promote shared aims of prevention and wellness for communities—a paradigm shift from the traditional emphasis on providing sick care for individuals.

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The outlook:

Health care globally accounts for four percent of carbon dioxide emissions, more than the aviation or shipping industries. This is mainly due to health systems’ round-the-clock operations, specialist medical equipment, extensive use of air conditioning and refrigerated storage. Most hospitals and care facilities are not designed for energy efficiency. In addition, our warming planet, can have a direct effect on population health and further stress health care infrastructures. But while climate change is the greatest global health threat facing the world, it is also the greatest opportunity to redefine the environmental impact on the social determinants of health. How can sector leaders advance practices and solutions to protect the health of the planet and its people? The journey has begun.

Key takeaways:

• It is time for health care leaders and their organizations to extend the “do no harm” ethic to the environment—to measure, manage, and set targets to reduce the sector’s carbon footprint to combat climate change.
• As climate change’s influence continues to increase, health care leaders will need to build resilience into their system’s infrastructure, supply chain and workforce to withstand natural disasters such as floods, drought, fires, and storms.
• To minimize the future risk on human health, efforts must be directed at ensuring that health care has the capacity and expertise to manage the influx of patients with respiratory, cardiovascular, and other climate change-induced health issues.
• Every public and commercial health care entity has both an individual and a collective role to play in accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy.
• Mitigating and adapting to climate change presents a global opportunity to remake the foundations of health care and introduce new operational models for resilience and sustainability.

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The outlook:

Health care delivery models are under intensifying pressure as health systems struggled around the globe with the COVID-19 outbreak, with skyrocketing patient numbers, employee burnout and workforce shortages, supply chain disruptions and equipment scarcities, and outdated facilities. Infrastructure constraints continue to be a concern due to lack of intensive care beds, ventilators, and personal protective equipment (PPE), especially during peaks. Amidst these challenges, the intersection of digital transformation and health care delivery model (HCDM) continues to convergence. Social distancing forced providers to quickly pivot to virtual care, and increasingly rely on advanced technologies like cloud computing, 5G telecommunications, artificial intelligence (AI), and interoperable data and analytics to address existing challenges and reimagine the Future of Health^TM

Key takeaways:

• Digital transformation is an essential step in preparing for a consumer-centric Future of Health
• While the convergence model is moving forward, there are still questions lingering around the funding and business models, the digital capabilities required to reimagine care delivery, change management across the enterprise, and incentivizing the workforce to embrace the digital.
• Health care cloud investment and adoption is on an upward trajectory. Organizations are turning to cloud and related technologies - Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) to improve operations, smooth capital spend, and eliminate brick-and-mortar data centers.
• Digital technologies will help construct and equip a “hospital without walls” that will blend inpatient care with alternative models including community- and home based care.

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