Feb 21
2020
Patient Care Trends of 2020: SDoH, Behavioral Data, and Moving Beyond the AI Trough of Disillusionment
By Dr. John Showalter, CPO, Jvion.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming healthcare, especially on its clinical side, where 62% of providers have already adopted an AI strategy. The American Hospital Association recently reported that when successfully implemented, clinical AI can improve patient outcomes and lower costs at each stage of the care cycle, from prevention and detection to diagnosis and treatment. Expect to see continued growth in AI adoption in 2020.
Here are a few of the most exciting AI trends to watch for:
Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) will become a core focus for healthcare AI solutions: AI has significant potential for helping reduce socioeconomic barriers to care. Across 2019, we have seen investment by CMS in the Accountable Health Communities Model, which is the first model to include social determinants of health. This model codifies what we already know — that socioeconomic factors influence an individual’s health and risk. Emerging AI technologies are actively creating value for patients by helping to make sense of large socioeconomic and environmental datasets, driving meaningful investments and action that will help to prevent avoidable utilization and guide effective distribution of community resources.
We will start to move into the “Slope of Enlightenment” within the Hype Cycle: Healthcare AI will move out of the “Trough of Disillusionment” as more evidence of AI’s ability to improve health outcomes emerge. AI-related topics will continue to gain prominence in research and the media. And the results of funded projects and pilots will become available to the broader industry.
The AI discussion will broaden beyond imaging and natural language processing: With the exponential increase in patient data, it’s only logical that it’s time for AI – the best way to synthesize that data – to have its moment. While imaging and natural language processing have dominated the healthcare AI conversation over the past few years, 2020 will mark an expanded understanding of AI solutions to include those focused on clinical decision support. These solutions integrate into existing clinical workflows to help direct resources to modifiable patients at risk of a target adverse event. Expect to see more investment and discussion around these solutions across 2020.