Expect the healthcare community to step-up efforts in cross-industry collaboration in 2020. While we’ll continue to see vertical and horizontal M&A reshape the landscape, collaborative partnerships will thrive. These approaches will broaden access to care, enhance customer experiences, improve patient outcomes, and bring efficiencies that lower overall cost.
Over the last several years there’s been alliances never before thought possible…retail giants as insurers, providers as payers, pharmacies as primary care clinics, ride-sharing companies as medical transportation hubs, and pharma as HlthTech-MedTech disruptors. Whether its competitors playing defense, regional players seeking national scalability, or others simply wanting to take advantage of an industry in transformation, expect it to ramp-up in 2020.
Collaboration among different parties with different interests and sometimes conflicting business drivers isn’t easy. Addressing shareholder expectations, balancing financial goals, and servicing customer demands takes extraordinary discipline. It requires a combination of cross-functional compatibility and a fair, open value exchange. Success means parties have established common vision, trust and transparency.
For those willing to make the right investment, alliances or partnerships can yield big rewards: open-up new markets, extend product offerings, expand customer base, accelerate innovation, and reap collective financial gain. For healthcare consumers, when an industry comes together to figure out how to align interests, break down barriers, eliminate friction, and create mutual incentives the result is better care and better access at a better cost.