"Disruptor" can be a dividing term in the healthcare industry. While some physicians are excited about new disruptions that promise to add ease to the surgical workflow, others are nervous about the entrance of new companies and big box retailers into the space.
Several healthcare specialists have spoken with Becker's about disruptors that they are both hopeful and nervous about headed into 2024.
Artificial intelligence and new technology:
"The biggest health disruptor in 2024 will be consumer wearables. Patients now have access to their data with devices such as Apple Watch, Karida and Oura Ring. The more information patients have, the better they will be able to manage their own healthcare. From a patient's perspective, it's only positive. From a physician's perspective, it can be overwhelming. I get daily reports from patients about abnormal recordings from their wearables. How do I respond when only the wearable is abnormal? Keeping up with this data and questions from patients has already become demanding." — Sri Sundaram, MD. Electrophysiologist at South Denver Cardiology Associates.
"The healthcare disruptor that I am eyeing is how health systems and hospitals will respond to healthcare becoming more consumer-based. How technology and utilization of AI is going to drive care outside of hospitals and into clinics, homes and virtual models." — Vineet Sharma, MD. Emergency Medicine Physician in Los Angeles.
"Orthopedics is so ripe for technologies and innovations. So there are certain disruptors that you sort of keep an eye on that serve the basic blocking and tackling of operating in a center and technologies or advances that help you to achieve efficiencies associated with time. Whether or not that is optimizing time or measuring time or anything that allows you to control some of the variables throughout the day. But from a true industry disruptor standpoint, when I think about the technology bucket, I think about virtual or mixed reality, whether or not those are headsets or some other technologies that have the opportunity to be embedded into the entire surgical process." — Kyle Anderson. Vice President of Finance and ASC at Ortho Rhode Island in Warwick.
"Progress in less invasive interventional technology, increasing attention to address burnout in healthcare workers, improving patient access to diagnostic tools, mobile access to virtual care for patients, steps to cover home care by insurers to avoid hospitalization, and the rise of physician executives in healthcare administration." — Bhagwan Satiani, MD. Professor of Surgery Emeritus in the Department of Surgery at the Ohio State University in Columbus.
"In the coming years, we will see an unprecedented technological evolution that will disrupt how we practice and deliver healthcare. This evolution will primarily revolve around the increase in artificial intelligence and its integration into every facet of patient care. AI can streamline care by reducing physician administrative burden, improving diagnostic accuracy, eliminating redundancy and minimizing physician errors. The introduction of AI into electronic medical records will occur piecemeal, with often undetectable change. However, in the coming decade, such technology will be commonplace and come to be expected by physicians and other providers." — Sean Moroze, MD. Orthopedic Surgeon affiliated with Ascension Medical Group Sacred Heart Bay Orthopedics in Panama City, Fla.
"AI is the most exciting and most worrisome potential disruptor. AI can improve healthcare quality but can also cause disruption that will dramatically change the marketplace." — Harel Deutsch, MD. Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush in Chicago.
"I've been a practicing orthopedic spine surgeon for 32 years and I am most excited about recent advancements in implant and biomaterial technology. For decades, the orthopedic world has concentrated on the strength and biomechanical properties of implants without adequately considering the cellular and physiologic response the body has to these implants. This is the reason that titanium and PEEK have remained the status quo in spinal surgery, despite shortcomings. Finally, new implants have been developed that not only retain desired biomechanical properties but additionally create a highly favorable cellular and immunologic response at the surgical site. This response controls inflammation and promotes healing, which translates into better clinical outcomes. The most exciting of these implants is ZFUZE from DiFusion Technologies." — Daniel George, MD. Orthopedic Surgeon with the Center for Bone and Joint Care in Putnam, Conn.
Prior authorization changes and denials:
"The biggest disruptor in the healthcare industry now, and this will continue into 2024, is the ongoing problem with prior approval for procedures, labs and imaging studies by many of the insurance companies. This also carries over to prescription medication. This will continue to result in delayed diagnosis and potential treatment for multiple medical problems. I'm afraid this may lead to more and more physicians leaving the medical field because of the above problems." — Sheldon Taub, MD. Gastroenterologist at Jupiter (Fla.) Medical Center.
New ownership trends:
"I’m worried about the mass exodus of privately owned physician practices being incorporated into major healthcare systems. For those hospital systems that encourage a partnership with freestanding ASCs, I'm hopeful, but there are plenty of healthcare systems that knowingly remove affordable options in their community in order to sustain their bottom line." — Marie Yarborough. Administrative Director of Sequoia Surgical Pavilion in Walnut Creek, Calif.
"New fixed-profit pharmacy companies like Cost Plus drugs by Mark Cuban. I think this is the tip of a very large iceberg, and hopefully new startups will spring out of this. Pharmacies are places patients are being taken advantage of in broad daylight and, as Americans, we accept it as normal, and it is clearly not normal." — Nadeem Goraya, MD. Chair of the Department of Medicine at Bakersfield (Calif.) Memorial Hospital.
"Although consolidation within an industry has been happening for years, consolidation like this across multiple business sectors (inside and outside of healthcare) is very concerning. Although physicians can find themselves in jail for a variety of activities deemed to be an 'internal referral,' companies who acquire pharmacies, drug manufacturing, companies and clinics can refer only to themselves without fear of penalty. They can also deny coverage for medications made by other companies or simply deny their customers the ability to visit competing pharmacies, etc. Currently, some Cigna plans do not allow their customers to go to CVS pharmacies due to their agreement with a competing insurance company. At the end of the day, this type of consolidation will likely yield profits for large companies and their shareholders, but it will undoubtedly be bad for the patients and eventually the physicians as well." — John Burleson, MD. Hughston Clinic Orthopaedics in Nashville, Tenn.
"The issue with retailers entering the healthcare space is much the same story as corporate medicine we see practiced all over this country. Opinion-makers are obsessed with growth. This works well in retail and trade, but not with human lives. These companies can create megaclinics, where costs are initially low, patients don't see actual doctors, and when they close due to insolvency, the patients are left high and dry and/or with substandard care and no one held accountable." — Brian Gantwerker, MD. The Craniospinal Center of Los Angeles.
"The more healthcare becomes transactional, the less patients will have the warm and fuzzy feelings about their treating provider. The less power MDs will have in the system, the human touch will be replaced by episodic algorithmic care. The outliers, contraindications and reliable transfer of information will take a back seat to overarching standards. I worry that the ability to innovate will be stifled by the one-size-fits-all mentality based on older data because it's proven, and newer treatments will not be approved. The constant scrutiny of the pre-approval process will cross the line for deciding treatments or indirectly, and de facto, become practicing medicine without a license." — Alan Reznik, MD. Chief Medical Officer of Connecticut Orthopaedics in Hamden.