By Andrea Park, Becker’s Hospital Review | May 23, 2019

Within the next decade, healthcare will see emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, cloud computing, predictive analytics and blockchain spurring billions of dollars in value increases, according to a new McKinsey & Company report on this tech-driven “era of exponential growth.”

For these innovations to impact areas like clinical productivity, care delivery and waste reduction, though, certain value pools will need to be disrupted across the entire industry.

Here are four possible disruptive changes that could transform healthcare in the coming years, according to McKinsey.

  • Modernized transaction and data infrastructure: The introduction of new technology may automate risk prediction and utilization management; create a machine learning-driven, patient-centric data infrastructure; and streamline current billing and insurance transaction infrastructure.
  • Radically more efficient medical supply chain: A combination of real-time patient monitoring, AI and drone deliveries could disrupt the typical business models of distributors in the pharmaceutical and medical products industries by delivering supplies to patients’ homes as soon as they are needed.
  • Faster, more effective therapy development: While the abilities to analyze longitudinal patient records and test new therapies on 3D-printed tissue will expedite the time it takes to prove the safety of innovative treatments, AI and advanced analytics will simultaneously make more traditional clinical trial methods more effective and efficient.
  • New, personalized and intuitive healthcare ecosystems: Patients and their families will be ensconced in personalized ecosystems of care, which will use AI and telehealth technologies to ensure they receive the proper care any time and anywhere.