2020 Healthcare Industry Outlook: Better Conversations Lead to Innovative Solutions

The sheer thought of how the healthcare industry will be shaped and molded in 2020 could create immediate anxiety. Economic uncertainty, political uncertainty, and industrial uncertainty makes for an unpredictable mixture of factors that could affect your company or organization in the healthcare space.

Smart companies are taking steps to insulate themselves from potential unrest by seeking innovative solutions. One trend in particular caught our attention in a very thorough report on the 2020 healthcare industry outlook released by Deloitte.

• The trend is that public, nonprofit, commercial, and non-traditional players (such as higher-education) are seeking alignment.
• The goal is to use advanced technology to improve healthcare delivery, “while operating largely outside of the traditional health care system.”
• The key is getting stakeholders together to scale these projects and execute delivery.
• The issue is that when trying to pull together decision-makers, executives, and other stakeholders from many different areas inside and outside of the healthcare space, it can make for challenging conversations.

Who Should Make the First Move in the Healthcare Space?

Because of uncertainty facing the healthcare industry in 2020, leaders inside healthcare organizations are hesitant to jump into new projects that could pose additional risk. How do you justify that to the Board and financial team?

Also, who wants to stick their neck out working with players from different sectors that may be motivated by different KPIs than your organization?

Motivations. Needs. Influencers. These are powerful factors that affect the quality of these collaborative projects that could potentially transform the healthcare industry by working outside of the traditional system.

So, who should make the first move engaging in these projects to leverage the power of public-private partnerships? The organizations that have the most to gain from tapping into new technology.

Look to the technological resources in your organization. How are you currently using technology? What technology do you need or want access to? How would more innovative technological solutions increase value to your organization and, ultimately, the patients you serve?

Organizations that need to close the technology gap should be making the first move having critical conversations with potential partners to pursue innovative healthcare solutions.

How to Have the Conversations for Healthcare Collaboration

In addition to reviewing the current condition of your technological resources, you should also review the condition of your overall organization:

• Is your workforce aging out?
• Do you have a talent or skills gap in your organization?
• Are your physicians or other providers on the verge of burn-out?
• Is your documentation process outdated and creating unnecessary burdens?
• Does your staff need relief from admin tasks to support advanced decision-making?

Asking these questions will give you an idea of which organizations to pursue collaboration with.

For example, if you have a talent or skills gap in your organization, the next step would be pursuing collaboration with higher-education to create on-campus medical training or workforce programs that could funnel college graduates to critical roles in your organization.

The key is understanding how to have conversations with potential partners inside or outside the healthcare industry to create sustainable programs.

Here’s three keys to start these conversations:

• Be honest about your need. You don’t need to give the whole story, but be transparent and open about the specific need you are seeking to address through a collaboration.
• Listen to the other party. Don’t just focus on who can fulfill your need; see how your organization can also fulfill a need for the other industry player(s).
• Create a plan. Outline steps for how to get the collaboration off the ground; create benchmarks of how to track progress; establish accountability.

Ask For Help on Having Better Conversations

Your organization may need to refine an approach to engaging in discussions about forming public-private partnerships. That’s where we can help through The Connection Process.

Our proven methodology leverages connections to create more impactful business relationships that lead to sustainable growth.

For organizations seeking to insulate themselves from healthcare uncertainty in 2020 and beyond, we can help identify smart partners for your organization to pursue and have these conversations with. We’ll also coach your team on how to engage in these conversations to increase the likelihood of turning an opportunity into a revenue-generating collaboration.

Contact us today to discuss your specific organizational needs. We’ll guide you on how to have better conversations with potential partners that drive toward innovative solutions in the healthcare space.