Market Data 
With challenges as big as the opportunities, now is an exciting time to be a healthcare leader. The number and scope of issues I’ve been wrestling with over the past few months have increased significantly, leading to longer days at my desk and longer (and more frequent) meetings.
I’m not alone. In conversations with other healthcare leaders, I hear a common question: With so many potential disruptions on the healthcare landscape, where should we focus? The silver lining: It’s inspiring us to think big about harnessing monumental change to serve patients.
I’ve identified three principles that have the potential to position Michigan Medicine, the academic medical center (AMC) I lead, to improve care in the next decade. I’ve shared them with other leaders because their impact on strategic decision-making isn’t unique to Michigan; they are focal points that can guide healthcare leaders, no matter what’s next.
1. Use technology strategically.
Leveraging AI and emerging technologies requires a steadfast commitment to a focus on the bottom line: deliver care efficiently and effectively. We must not embrace technology for technology’s sake; instead, we should measure the benefits of groundbreaking new systems through their ability to augment and assist healthcare professionals, to free up resources to ensure that expert care is targeted to the people who need it most. So often, technology is presented as the solution to all challenges. It’s not. But it can elevate care efficiency.
2. Collaborate more, compete less.
Competition is nothing new in the healthcare industry, and healthy competition often drives innovation. But with the entry of Google, Amazon, and others into the field, too often the discussion of increasingly fragmented care systems is presented as a zero-sum game: Their success comes at the expense of traditional healthcare providers. That’s an oversimplification of the healthcare landscape, and it misses the opportunity these disruptors offer to greatly expand the channels through which more care can be offered to more people.
An aging population and a shortage of healthcare workers strain our ability to provide quality care to all. We need to assess how and when we can leverage nontraditional providers to deliver care cost-effectively. Retail medicine and telemedicine are the harbingers of a future where there will be fewer people in hospitals and less demand for beds for routine care and routine procedures, freeing up beds for intensive, acute care. Care that, five years ago, we couldn’t have imagined being provided on an outpatient basis will be delivered at home.
AMCs can fill a critical role in taking on big challenges, such as pioneering treatments for chronic and life-threatening health conditions, while other providers address the pain points around the desire for instant access for maladies that can be diagnosed and treated in a single virtual visit. That’s the kind of sustainable model that positions us to collaborate, rather than compete, with retail medicine. That said, continuity of care depends on seamless information sharing. Patients should trust that every provider, whether primary or episodic, has access to their full health record and communicates effectively. Interoperability is foundational as care expands across diverse settings.
3. Prioritize primary care.
I’m frequently surprised at the metrics some healthcare organizations use to measure progress. Patient satisfaction. Length of stay. Bed occupancy rate. Cost per patient. Each of these is important to assess, but in the end, there’s one central metric that matters: improving patient outcomes. Today’s healthcare environment is too often focused on sick care rather than well care. ERs should never be a patient’s first line of defense. We should identify pathways that provide basic, comprehensive, and skilled primary care to everyone who needs it—and make those pathways easy for patients to navigate.
Going Forward
AMCs should focus on what we do well. That means recognizing that hospitals may not always be the right place for a patient. Nontraditional environments can be just as—or even more—effective places for care. Nontraditional partners sometimes are better at delivering basic services quickly and cost-effectively.
Transforming healthcare doesn’t always require radical change. More often, it demands a renewed focus on what’s needed to help more people live healthier lives.
