Top healthcare trends to watch for at MGMA 2023

More than 1300 attendees and 135 exhibitors are expected to attend this year’s Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) Leader’s Conference in Nashville this October. As attendees make their way through the conference, these are the top three trends expected to dominate conversations at MGMA 2023:

A modern network drives healthcare delivery transformation

According to a recent peer-reviewed academic paper published by the National Library of Medicine, “Healthcare systems need to use digital technology for innovative solutions to improve healthcare delivery and to achieve improvement in medical problems. The digital transformation of healthcare includes changes related to the internet, digital technologies, and their relation to new therapies and best practices for better health management procedures.” That same paper, however, stresses that “Digital transformation is an ongoing process that can create opportunities in the health sector, provided the necessary infrastructure and training are available.” The authors conclude that there is plenty of room for healthcare delivery transformation to continue as “healthcare has the lowest level of digital innovation compared to other industries, such as media, finance, insurance and retail.” 

Digital technology continues to lead the care delivery transformation, and this is evident with digital-based patient engagement and telehealth. However, increased digital patient engagement necessarily expands the attack surface for cybercriminals. As the way healthcare is delivered continues to evolve, an organization’s digital transformation journey should prompt questions for healthcare IT leaders, such as:  How does a practice ensure that their network is always ready for what’s next? How can a hospital move forward while staying ahead of increased demands for network reliability, security, survivability and scalability? 

Healthcare organizations must ensure that they have the proper connectivity solutions in place. A modernized network with reliable, secure, high-speed connectivity can give hospitals and practices the solid foundation needed to advance digital health initiatives, while also supporting every other high-bandwidth activity across the healthcare campus. For example, to fully capitalize on the power of emerging healthcare technologies like predictive analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), organizations require a reliable network with scalable bandwidth.

Opportunities to improve practice management

Practice management solutions are helping to transform the healthcare field, and analysts report that these solutions clocked in at a worldwide market size of $12.9 billion in 2022, and are expected to grow to $28.2 billion by 2028. That same firm reports that North America accounts for 52.3% of that market, and that web-based technology comprises almost 51% of the total market. 

This is partly due to the increases in cloud migration to support electronic medical records (EMR), patient portal applications and help desks. As practices need to leverage IT technology to optimize their business process, Internet access and firewall protection are fundamental to securely achieving this growth. 

Solutions exist that enable practices to support new virtual care platforms and healthcare information management systems, while also improving application performance for electronic medical records with secure network connectivity for in-office and remote clinicians. Choosing the right practice management partner will also mean that equipment will be updated when it’s ready and that the latest patches to keep the network safe, and keep tech HIPAA-compatible, will be automatically implemented. Practices can also reduce capital expenditures by consolidating and optimizing network components that are specifically designed for your practice. 

Enhancing the patient experience

Physician practices and healthcare organizations are well aware of the need to implement more technology to improve the patient experience.  From patient engagement and communications to care delivery and entertainment, practices are increasingly relying on digital technology to create a safe, compliant, efficient and pleasant patient experience.

Connected care, the technology used to deliver healthcare remotely and conveniently, has seen rapid growth in recent years. Connected care is expected to continue playing an increasing role in healthcare, with telehealth, remote monitoring and hospital-at-home areas gaining the most traction. With the almost universal support of connected care by providers and patients, it's no surprise that 94% of healthcare practices anticipate investing in technologies or solutions that support connectivity and telehealth. 

Practices can enhance both patient communications and clinician collaboration by introducing a unified communications solution. With fully managed, cloud-based unified communications, a given practice could seamlessly bring together calling, messaging, video conferencing and more in a single, comprehensive application. Organizations can further enhance the patient healthcare communications experience by having all the cloud-based healthcare solutions your patients and clinicians use to stay connected in one place. Ensure HIPAA-compatible interactions and set up virtual visits with telehealth services, while enabling time-saving automation for more personalized patient care improvements. 

How Spectrum Enterprise can help

Healthcare technology is transforming the industry landscape and patients expect experiences that align with their digital-first daily lives. If a practice is ready to provide better on-site care, remote patient monitoring and telehealth services, Spectrum Enterprise offers everything it needs to secure and modernize its network. 

Our team at MGMA can help a practice advance its digital health technology, be HIPAA compatible with patient data, quickly access and leverage more telemedicine solutions and improve operational efficiencies with a customized healthcare IT solution built for your practice. A team from Spectrum Enterprise will be there specifically to serve the healthcare community as a trusted partner by delivering insights and demonstrating solutions that can help attendees achieve medical practice excellence.

Spectrum Enterprise provides technology solutions to 80% of the largest health systems in the US, and partners with healthcare organizations of all sizes. Learn more about HITRUST and HIPAA-compatible solutions that can secure a single or multi-site network with the equipment, connectivity, management, communications and support needed to spur digital healthcare transformation.