Insights and analysis from a survey of 101 health executives.
Luminary Labs invited healthcare executives to participate in a simple end-of-year survey focused on just one question: “What’s the one thing every healthcare leader should invest in next year (2023) to prepare for 2025?” The survey received 101 responses from decision-makers at 77 different organizations — including pharma and biotech, health IT and technology, providers, startups, investors, professional services, and payers.
The Health 2025 report features our analysis of survey responses, as well as insights from leaders at Aetna, Boston Children’s Hospital, Johnson & Johnson, Startup Health, and more. Download the full report to find out how executives are prioritizing investments in people, technology, and real systemic change.
Download the Health 2025 report
Executive summary
In many ways, 2022 felt like a transitional year for healthcare. But it’s difficult to define exactly what that transition is.
The coronavirus pandemic continues, but for many, it seems like less of an emergency and more like a new way of life. Pandemic darlings, including telehealth, have demonstrated what’s possible, but have not achieved the scale expected. Pharma has narrowed its digital interests, favoring patient engagement over moonshots. Considering investments in artificial intelligence and interoperability is now table stakes. Value-based care is, well, hard.
The desire for optionality is stronger than ever: Patients want telehealth visits, and also want to see doctors in person. Employees want to work from home, and also want to connect with colleagues in person. Optimizers and caregivers want apps that track meaningful health data, and also want expert humans to interpret that data and provide trusted advice.
For health industry leaders, it’s a confusing time to be in charge. With all of the possible investments to make, what should executives prioritize so their organizations come out on top in the next year or two?
To find the answer, Luminary Labs invited healthcare executives to participate in a simple survey focused on just one question: “What’s the one thing every healthcare leader should invest in next year (2023) to prepare for 2025?”
The survey, which was open from November 13, 2022, through January 12, 2023, received 101 responses from decision-makers at 77 different organizations — including pharma and biotech, health IT and technology, providers, startups, investors, professional services, and payers. Nearly half of respondents are in roles at the vice president or executive director level; more than one-third represent C-suite roles, and the remainder represent mid-senior or director roles.
Before we even concluded the formal analysis, we were struck by the sentiment surrounding an investment in humans: The number of responses that mentioned the words people, patients, and talent outnumbered responses that mentioned words like technology, digital, and data. Shiny objects were few and far between. When respondents mentioned specific technologies, they often elaborated on how that technology would support bigger-picture objectives, and they referenced investments in the infrastructure and systems required to create real value.
To be sure, early experimentation is prerequisite to innovation: The pacemaker would not have been possible without hypothermia research, and health wearables would not have been possible without someone asking what smaller and lower-cost sensors could do. But real leadership is knowing when to shift from investing in innovations in search of problems to starting with a problem and translating innovation to achieve a target state. In a more mature industry, people are fixing things that are broken. Digital health innovation is moving out of the garage and taking its rightful place inside the system, focusing on the underpinnings that make real transformation possible.
