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They can subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. I did not go to the 42nd annual JP Morgan conference. That just wrapped up on January 11th of last week. And it is one of my favorite conferences. I like going there. It has become harder for me to fit it into my schedule, but the But it is still what I think to be one of the most interesting conferences out there.

And the reason is because JP, Morgan's not trying to make money from a conference. And so they allow a whole bunch of stuff to happen outside the conference that you will not find at health. Five hymns, other organizations that quite frankly are in that the event business. And so all over San Francisco, you will find different events, different things going on, different groups getting together, and you will find the coffee shops packed with people having. Discussions and conversations and those kinds of things, you will have that at the other industry events, but that's the one thing that's unique about this event is. JP Morgan. W we'll gladly have other events scattered around the city and be happy. Because it creates value for their business, which is the investors who are coming in to hear what's going on.

Now, the part I used to go to all the time was the healthcare providers presenting. Their their pitch. And you would have the CEO, CFO there talking about the various things that they are facing, and we're going to cover some of those things. Cause they showed up in some of the new stories that I pulled here. But I'm going to start by talking about some of the some of the broader shifts, and then we'll get into some of the specific things. Payment and value based care.

There's a shifting payment structured that's been talked about and continues to be talked about. Providers are increasingly taking on payment risk. For delivering improved care at lower costs while value based care contracts still represent a smaller portion of the revenue. It's clear healthcare systems are preparing for it to grow and it's significance. And organizations are heading in this direction, the pandemic. Really spelled out pretty clearly that fee for service breaks down in that situation.

And they don't want to be in that situation again. The payers did really well through the pandemic. The providers did not do so well during the pandemic. Outside of the government money that was supplied to them. So therefore they are shifting, they are looking for more increased. A risk based contracts and a value based care payments.

So that's one of the big shifts, again, not new, but just more momentum in that direction. Focus on population health and cost management, understanding costs and margins within patient populations. Is becoming crucial for managing resources effectively. This means better data analysis. And targeted interventions for specific. Cohorts. Health systems are trying to use the data we've been collecting for years. To become more efficient, more effective. To provide better care, get better outcomes and whatnot.

So our data. Analytics capabilities need to continue to grow and get better as we move forward. Let's see industry consolidation and innovation. I almost hesitate to bring this up, but it is going to be a significant trend. Coming into this year, we saw the in Philadelphia, you saw Jefferson pick up Lehigh valley health network.

You just saw Pen pick up was it Doylestown? And it was one of the outlying areas hospital. They pulled that in. But that was a market. Philadelphia was a market that was ripe for consolidation. So not a shock that it's happening there, but it's going to be happening all over the place.

Again, not an, not a new trend. I almost get tired of talking about it, but it is going to be a trend. So it's going to be something we have to talk about. And if you're on the it side, which is our primary audience here you have to have a plan for this. If you are in the acquiring side, you should have a complete playbook ready to go.

It should not come as a shock to you that there's going to be acquisitions. And you're going to be asked to merge those technologies in paint, the best picture of, Hey, here's what's required. Here's the. Project management that's associated with up here are the costs that are associated with it so that when your leadership comes to you and says, Hey, we're ready for another acquisition.

You just hand up the playbook. Many of you have developed those playbooks over the last couple of years, because there's been so much M and a. Let's see technology, convergence, healthcare and technology are merging. With AI and machine learning, driving innovations. In a lot of different areas in care pathways, in communication with the patient. In call centers in drug discovery, you name it's We are going to see a. A boom in how AI machine learning and technology are used in healthcare.

And it creates opportunities for improved care, but also raises concerns about data privacy and equity and what not moving forward. And by the way, AI machine learning was a part of the Jamie diamond. Presentation and address, there was a whole section of, or there was a whole nother conference that got spun up by the valid AI people and shisha Trisha and that whole group.

And wow great. Panels, they put together, but anyway, there, there was a whole section. AI machine learning, we're going to be able to talk about on every one of these shows if we want to. But technology convergence is a significant trend as well. There was a bunch of stuff.

The other thing about this conference is you get a bunch of stuff on the. The pharma side, you get a bunch of stuff on the on the payer side, you get a device side. Metronic is revamping their strategy. Focused really on. Restoring earnings power. And I think that's going to be one of the key things that we talk about is there's a significant financial focus right now.

It's been a tough year and they're expecting or anticipating a tough year with interest rates and where things are at in terms of the economy. Going forward. Some challenges and opportunities. Rural hospital closures are continuing to rise and which will create more underserved communities.

So that's concerned. Burnout and work for shortages, healthcare worker burnout and staff shortages remain severe challenges. Healthcare systems need to invest in mental health support. Competitive wages and workforce development programs, and a lot of the larger health systems that I've been talking to have gotten beyond the critical nature of this. But it is still a primary focus for every health system in the country.

And then mental health awareness and access mental health received increased attention, highlighting the need for improved access to services. And D stigma. De-stigmatization, that's a hard word to say. This could lead to increased funding and innovative care models. Let me go down to here's some of these other stories. Clinical innovation, gene therapy, momentum is starting to rise.

Precision medicine advances. Pursuant measures of medicine based on individual genetic and molecular profiles is gaining ground. With companies developing targeted therapies. Interesting. Telehealth expansion, telehealth, adoption and investment are surging. Driven by increased patient demand and convenience. This opens up opportunities for remote care delivery in improved access to specialties.

I think this is going to be a big and important move for health systems. Yes, we put all those things in place, but now it's more of a strategy conversation. How much can we do via telehealth? How can we reach more people? How can we expand the number of people that are actually in our EHR?

Because we are delivering tele-health. This is going to be a growth strategy, I think going into 20, 24 and important to keep an eye on. Health equity. Concerns about disparities in healthcare, access and quality for underserved communities. Is at the forefront so that there's a bunch of mentions in various articles about that. There's calls for policy change and targeted interventions. Let's see social determinants comes up every year.

Let's see what it says. Ah, there's a growing recognition of the impact of social factors like poverty, housing, instability, and food insecurity. On health outcomes, initiatives to address these factors are gaining traction. Yeah, and they will gain traction. The question is who pays for them? And that's always what holds it back and slows it down. And once we get a solid plan for who's paying for that. I think it will gain significant traction business and operations.

So that is going to be, you'll probably hear that coming up. If you're a CIO that discussion and conversation around supply chain ha. More than likely started during the pandemic is just continuing. But now we're going to be looking at resilience. In those supply chains cybersecurity threats remain a top concern. And I'm not glossing over that.

I understand. It's a major concern. We do enough shows. That focus in on that. And we're going to do a renewed emphasis starting in February on cybersecurity. So stay tuned for that. Sustainability efforts, environmental sustainability is gaining traction. We heard that. From Mike Pfeffer over at Stanford, we're hearing it from other health systems as well, that are looking at their carbon footprint.

Heard it from a. BJ more Providence, a lot of health systems are coming out with initiatives. That that addressed their carbon footprint as an operation. And so I think you'll hear more and more of that. And then the normal things, wearable technologies, remote monitoring are increasing. Not as many mentions, so probably was mentioned by a couple, but not a, it wasn't an overall trend. That was going on.

I think the forward leaning health systems are really weighing their options with regard to remote monitoring, increasing the number of beds that they are managing by managing beds in people's homes. Let's see, final one, blockchain and healthcare. The reason I'm mentioning this is because it has gotten such a bad rap over the years.

Let's see blockchain technologies. Are being explored for secure data, sharing, supply chain management and personalized medicine applications. Although adoption is still in its early stages. Blockchain does represent a significant move forward with regard to security in data sharing. However, there are significant limitations from all the technologists that I've talked about.

Talk to with regard to speed of those transactions and that's distributed nature of the blockchain. Creates some challenges as well. Again, this will, the blockchain will be slow going until there's fundamental changes in how we think about architecture and how we think about. The data and data security and data privacy.

These were some of the trends, some of the big things that were coming up in stories with regard to the JP Morgan conference, I would imagine if I've sat through. As I normally do listening to the CFOs, I would have heard a pretty, pretty difficult year. We know that from the from the various reports we got all throughout last year, that margins were down. Costs were up. And revenues were flat. Which was a bad combination. This is probably multiple years that we're looking at that.

So you're looking at probably some decrease in terms of cash on hand. You're looking at some decreases in well, actually investments probably did. Okay. Last year for thought about it, investments probably did. Okay. But there's going to be a renewed focus this year on making sure that things don't get any worse and that they only get better.

And so you could continue to see cost reductions within healthcare. You're going to see a. Definitely a drive towards growth. If it is to be had in their markets could be M and a, could be a new facilities. I'm surprised actually, by the number of new facilities out here, going up. But continues to be a trend.

And I think it's a way to reach more larger swaths of the geography in. Your markets. And as these markets continue to grow. You were going to see do places going up, when you think about it, it's not like the population is growing. All that greatly what's happening is populations are moving around. And so as populations move around. They need healthcare and access and convenience are important factors. For for the health care community.

All right. That's my report. From the JP Morgan conference. Sorry, I didn't get to go this year, but hopefully we'll get back there next year. We'll see. That's all for today. Don't forget to share this podcast with a friend or colleague. Keep the conversations going. We want to thank our channel sponsors who are investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders. Short test artist, site parlance, certified health notable ad 📍 service.

Now. Check them out at this week. Dot com slash today. Thanks for listening. That's all for now.