Julia Strandberg, Chief Business Leader, Connected Care and Monitoring Mr Phillips said: Mobi Health News Key healthcare trends for 2024 include advancements in home health care and digital healthcare reimbursement.
While these innovations aim to improve patient outcomes, challenges remain in scaling care delivery and aligning incentives, she said. However, advances in Medicare policy, such as expanded coverage of digital mental health treatment and telehealth monitoring, indicate that acceptance of digital health tools is growing.
Strandberg also highlighted growing cybersecurity threats and the growing role of AI in streamlining clinical workflows.
Mobi Health News: What are the key takeaways for 2024?
Julia Strandberg: 2024 has seen many important trends and developments across healthcare, but one of the most important is the continued evolution of care delivery models.
Advances in home health technology underscore the industry’s mission to extend quality care beyond hospital walls, improve patient outcomes, and reduce the burden on healthcare facilities. However, extending this model remains a challenge. The infrastructure needed to support it, the incentive structures needed to drive adoption, and how to provide simplified and attractive workflows that help providers respond to patients in a timely manner. Important questions remain.
Another big takeaway for 2024 was advances in digital healthcare reimbursement. Digital health tools are increasingly positioned as key enablers of patient-centered care models by improving patient outcomes, reducing readmissions, and strengthening care coordination. Additionally, the expansion of Medicare coverage for remote therapy monitoring (RTM) signals the widespread acceptance of digital health in mainstream healthcare delivery. We are also seeing an increase in the adoption of AI-powered tools in reimbursement policies.
However, the industry must continue to make it easy for patients to navigate the system to minimize disruption. This requires continued collaboration between medical technology, consumer technology, public and private stakeholders to create a sustainable ecosystem that benefits all stakeholders and meets patient needs. Masu.
MHN: What was the biggest surprise/most notable event of 2024?
Strandberg: The year brought two important developments that will shape the healthcare landscape in 2025. These are the evolving debates around health policy and patient-centered care, and the proliferation of cybersecurity threats across industries.
The transition to a new presidential administration has sparked debate about health policy changes with a new focus on integrating patient-centered care models. Although the industry recognizes the potential benefits of this approach, including improved patient outcomes and increased provider satisfaction, its uptake has been slower than expected.
To realize the full potential of patient-centered care models, the U.S. reimbursement system must be reevaluated to support medical technologies that deliver care in multiple settings. We also need to ensure that clinicians who manage care beyond the walls of traditional hospitals are adequately compensated.
2024 saw an unprecedented amount of cybersecurity attacks targeting healthcare systems. Hospitals have found themselves having to balance the need to comply with evolving cybersecurity requirements while implementing new technologies to extend healthcare delivery. Financial and resource constraints often hinder their ability to meet these demands and expose them to cyber vulnerabilities.
To counter these attacks, The FDA has taken important steps to strengthen cybersecurity requirements for digital health technologies through 510(k) filings aimed at protecting both health care systems and patients.
Looking to the future, collaboration between healthcare providers and technology partners will be essential to strengthen cybersecurity measures.
MHN: What do you think will happen to digital health funding in 2025?
Strandberg: Digital health is poised for continued significant growth. While the 2021 investment boom raised huge amounts of capital, recent years have highlighted the challenges posed by the gap between FDA approval and reimbursement. However, the industry will have a better understanding of how regulatory pathways and reimbursement frameworks impact the safe and effective use of digital health tools and how to ensure their economic viability. It has become. Delivering care to patients where they are will continue to be our North Star, and continued investment will continue to drive innovation in this space.
2024 also saw significant advances in digital health reimbursement. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) completes payment for digital mental health treatment (DMHT) devices and supports access to psychotherapy when these devices are part of a specialized behavioral health treatment plan I will. This decision is an important milestone for patients and could pave the way for reimbursement for other digital therapeutic devices.
moreover, CMS has introduced significant updates to remote patient monitoring (RPM) codes for 2024 to simplify billing, enhance reimbursement, and support widespread adoption of digital health services. New bundled CPT codes reduce administrative burden by consolidating services such as device setup, patient education, and data collection. To close critical gaps in the health system, build on these advances by continually improving regulations and reimbursement policies to support safe, effective, and accessible care in 2025. is essential.
MHN: Will mergers and acquisitions still be a big part of the digital health space in 2025?
Strandberg: yes. I think we will continue to see mergers and acquisitions in the digital health field. But I also think we’ll see more of an ecosystem of partnerships between clinical technology vendors and providers. As we aim to close gaps in healthcare and improve patient outcomes, an ecosystem of partnerships can help address challenges by increasing the availability of digital health solutions that can reach more patients.
For example, we have previously cooperated with AWS integrates cloud-based diagnostics and generative AI into clinical workflows to increase efficiency, improve access to critical insights, and drive improved patient outcomes across radiology, pathology, and cardiology. Masu. Other partnerships, including Medtronic and Abbott, will combine Abbott’s technology with Medtronic’s insulin delivery system to enable an integrated continuous glucose monitoring system, ultimately expanding access to care for people living with diabetes. I’m working on that.
MHN: How do you think the position of AI in healthcare will change in 2025?
Strandberg: While AI will continue to play a large role in several areas of healthcare, the biggest impact I see for AI in 2025 is streamlining the amount of data that clinicians have to consider. and the ability to make faster, more informed decisions. For example, AI-powered remote patient monitoring can assess patient data and generate actionable insights and recommendations to enhance clinical decision-making.
Increasing adoption of AI-integrated workflows will give clinicians back valuable time and improve the quality of care they need to determine which patients can safely continue treatment at home and which require in-person treatment. You will be able to obtain information.
