Healthcare executives need to be able to prepare for the future and understand what their industry will look like in 20 years.
Dan Doherty, president and CEO of Ascension Alexian Brothers hospital in Elk Grove Village, Ill., stopped by the "Becker's Healthcare Podcast" to talk about the future of the healthcare industry.
Note: This is an edited excerpt. Listen to the full episode here.
Question: What does the future of Alexian Brothers look like?
Dan Doherty: It is an interesting question in terms of the future of a health system. It is dependent on so many external and internal forces. You are looking at both external innovators — you have government policy, you have insurance companies and you have other key stakeholders that are going to really drive certain decisions or the direction of a healthcare system in the future. Before going into the specifics of Ascension Alexian Brothers, I think it is helpful to talk more broadly about the U.S. healthcare market. You are going to see systems continue to get bigger. We have certainly seen that in the Chicago market with consolidation, vertical integration and horizontal integration.
I do think that is going to benefit patients because it's going to reduce the fragmentation of care. You have EMR integration, you have tech that is consistent across a singular system and improvements that go along with that. I think we will continue to see growth in telehealth. That was an innovation that was already available prior to the pandemic. I think what we went through really forced us to rethink how we engage with our patients. I think we are going to see that on both the outpatient and the inpatient side, and we are going to see migration to services being managed in person only when that's really necessary. I think that's best practice in terms of efficiency for providers, but I also think it's great for patients.