As the healthcare industry evolves from a paper-filled, physician-powered environment to a digital and consumer-driven age, there are three key groups that are looking to strike it rich in this "gold mine."
PwC consultants recently published an article comparing healthcare reform to the gold rush, according to an article in MedCity News.
The consultants from PwC's Strategy& consulting team, Carl Dumont, Sundar Subramanian and Christoph Dankert, wrote that as much as $1.5 trillion in annual sending and $150 billion in profits are available for companies to grab, if they play their cards right.
The people that will be the most successful at securing a large slice of the $1.5 trillion are those that look at the "broken industry" of healthcare and provide critical thinking and radical redesign.
There are three key players in pursuit of this are gold miners, bartenders and railroad pioneers.
Gold miners are organizations that are successfully applying technology to population health management.
Bartenders are organizations that offer customized and convenient options with great marketing and design but are not necessarily in the business of creating new processes. The article notes Walgreens, Theranos and Fitbit as examples.
At the foundation lies the railroad pioneers that are bringing the gold miners and bartenders to the "Yukon Trail." Epic Systems, for example, is creating the infrastructure that bartenders and gold miners can create and develop upon.
The consultants also point out, though, that just like the gold rush, nothing is guaranteed for any of these players in the end.