Looking Ahead to 2019: 10 Predictions for Hospitals and Health Systems

Download a PDF of the report

What’s Ahead for Hospitals and Health Systems in 2019?

New health care market entrants and vertical integrators are challenging the traditional business models and operational tactics of hospitals and health systems.

In response, The American Hospital Association’s (AHA) Center for Health Innovation has released a set of tools that track the disruptive activity in the field and suggest the moves hospitals and health systems can make to convert that challenge into an opportunity to serve the health needs of their patients and communities.

But change is coming fast, and not all hospitals and health systems are in a position to gradually respond to that change over the next five to 10 years. Some may need to respond tomorrow — if not yesterday — to remain relevant to their patients and to their communities.

With that growing sense of urgency in mind, the AHA Center for Health Innovation assembled a list of 10 predictions for 2019 that hospitals and health systems should consider as they prepare for another year of transformative change.

Each of these predictions represents one or more focus areas of the AHA Center for Health Innovation, including:

• Affordability and value
• Innovation capacity
• New payment and delivery models
• Performance improvement
• Population health
• Emerging issues

This list of events, forces and trends represents the collective insights from a variety of sources. This report addresses each prediction in alphabetical order, not in order of priority. An expert panel of hospital and health system leaders and other health care experts, including representatives from advisory firms, helped to inform these predictions.