What You Should Know:
– A new report from Trilliant Health paints a grim picture of the US healthcare system, highlighting escalating costs and worsening health outcomes despite increased spending.
– The 2024 Trends Shaping the Health Economy Report serves as a wake-up call for the US healthcare system. It underscores the urgent need for stakeholders to address the unsustainable cost trajectory and prioritize initiatives that genuinely improve health outcomes.
Key Findings:
- Unsustainable Spending: National health expenditures have ballooned from $2.8 trillion in 2012 to $4.5 trillion in 2022, with projections reaching a staggering $7.7 trillion by 2032.
- Stagnant Life Expectancy: Despite this massive investment, American life expectancy has barely improved since 2000 and lags nearly four years behind other OECD countries.
- Rising Mortality Rates: Alarmingly, 30-day hospital mortality rates have been climbing since 2021, even excluding COVID-19 patients.
- Worsening Health: Americans are experiencing higher rates of obesity, diabetes, and behavioral health conditions.
Disturbing Trends Among Young Americans:
The report reveals particularly concerning trends among younger demographics:
- Increased Mortality: The 18-44 age group has seen the largest increase in mortality rates.
- Early-Onset Cancers: Cases of breast, colon, kidney, and uterine cancers are rising in patients aged 45 and under.
- Mental Health Crisis: Eating disorders, schizophrenia, ADHD, and anxiety disorders are all on the rise.
- Substance Abuse: Liver-related diseases and mortality are increasing among young men, with a 66% surge in visits for alcoholic liver disease in men aged 18-39.
- Autoimmune Diseases: Conditions like ulcerative colitis, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, and lupus are becoming more prevalent.
Ineffective Interventions:
The report also casts doubt on the effectiveness of current interventions:
- Value-Based Care: Trilliant Health projects that value-based care programs will actually increase Medicare spending by $9.4 billion by 2026.
- Artificial Intelligence: Despite the hype, clinical AI usage remains low, with limited impact on patient outcomes.
- Telehealth: While telehealth usage surged during the pandemic, it has since declined significantly, except for behavioral health applications.
The Need for Value-Driven Healthcare:
Trilliant Health emphasizes the urgent need for a shift towards value-driven healthcare. The report highlights the potential for lower-cost care settings and employer-driven initiatives to demand better value for money.
“As an admirer of Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends reports, I have long believed that our industry needed an analogous, data-driven view of emerging healthcare trends,” said Trilliant Health Chief Research Officer Sanjula Jain, Ph.D. “In the fourth installment of our Trends Shaping the Health Economy Report, we expand upon our foundational conclusions from the past three years to examine in more detail the concept of value.”
