2025 Healthcare Trends

5 Critical Healthcare Trends Reshaping the Industry

2025 Healthcare Trends: Transforming the Industry with Technology and Insights

As we step into 2025, our Healthcare team at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions is exploring the trends that are reshaping the healthcare industry. These predictions emphasize the critical role emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and health equity insights from real-world data will play in modernizing cybersecurity, addressing barriers to care, expediting clinical research, tackling post-pandemic challenges and navigating the ongoing mergers and acquisitions (M&A) volatility. Over the next few months, we’ll be diving deep into these topics and are kicking off the blog series with a preview of each of these major trends.   

1. AI-Driven Cybersecurity Modernization 

The increasing frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks on healthcare institutions are catalyzing overdue modernization in identity verification practices. In 2024, high-profile breaches targeting major healthcare organizations underscored the vulnerability of healthcare data1. The emergence of generative AI tools has exacerbated this risk by enabling sophisticated identity theft. Fraudsters exploit demographic data and forged documents available on the dark web to bypass traditional verification methods. AI-driven deepfakes have further compounded the issue, allowing fraudulent identity presentations, such as deepfake selfies, to defeat biometric verification systems.

Despite advancements in e-commerce and banking, healthcare has lagged behind in adopting modern identity verification practices, often prioritizing ease of access for patients over robust security. However, the tide is turning with some healthcare organizations testing robust liveness detection techniques that prompt users to perform specific actions like turning their heads to confirm the presence of a live individual. But this type of verification is too burdensome for healthcare consumers, particularly those who need to log-in and verify their identity on a regular basis and those who are less tech savvy. 

Instead, healthcare institutions will need to prioritize frictionless digital and AI-driven identity verification solutions in 2025. These solutions will enhance patient privacy and trust without disrupting the patient experience, ensuring a balance between security and accessibility.

2. Addressing Provider Burden and Digital Divides to Achieve Health Equity   

Health equity remains a critical focus for 2025, with a growing emphasis on reducing provider burnout and bridging digital divides. Social needs screenings, though essential for equity, have seen limited adoption due to challenges in scaling and sustainability. Reimbursing providers for screening for social determinants of health (SDOH) is a step forward, but additional innovations are needed to make these efforts feasible. 

Leveraging external data sources offers a promising solution. By integrating data from community needs assessments, social needs organizations and ongoing digital health interventions, healthcare organizations can gather actionable health equity insights without overburdening providers. Interoperable data exchange further enhances the ability to address SDOH effectively.

Innovative health interventions, such as digital tools and real-world data collection outside clinical settings, are redefining equity strategies. These approaches not only enhance data collection but also maintain patient privacy and streamline processes for providers. In 2025, healthcare organizations are expected to seek alternative methods for collecting SDOH data, ensuring that health equity efforts remain impactful and sustainable. 

3. Seamless Real-World Data Enrichment Accelerates Clinical Research  

Emerging technologies and the integration of real-world data (RWD) are poised to dramatically accelerate clinical research timelines. Traditional data sources are often siloed, making data sourcing, integration and management costly and time consuming. In 2025, the expansion and adoption of research-ready data will transform life sciences and healthcare research by addressing these inefficiencies of fragmented, inconsistent datasets. The advancement of pre-blended datasets that are standardized, de-identified, linked and expert determined will reduce the time to insights - driving faster innovation and real-world evidence.

One innovation that will be critical in creating a more streamlined clinical research workflow is referential-based tokenization, which replaces sensitive patient data with secure, non-sensitive tokens, enabling datasets to be linked with more precision. This empowers research teams to enrich their datasets based on their specific study design, whether that be creating a more holistic view of the patient journey, defining patient cohorts and/or benchmarking against comparator cohorts. Simplifying the data enrichment process with tokenized research-ready data blends will bring a new level of efficiency to clinical research. 

4. Rethinking Growth in a “Post Post-Pandemic” Landscape 

The post-pandemic era brought significant changes to healthcare market dynamics, including labor shortages, market consolidations and shifting patient expectations. Now that we’ve settled into a new normal, the “post post-pandemic” phase will force providers and payers to rethink their business models to address these challenges while balancing innovation and cost containment. Enhancing patient engagement has become a priority and this next era of growth will need to go beyond developing community partnerships to reach the underserved or relying on preventive care measures like vaccines and screenings to maintain patient involvement and ensure continuity of care.

This next era of growth will be dynamic and require healthcare organizations to leverage real-world data to understand the latest market shifts including which service lines are successful and which have opportunities to grow. Labor shortages and consolidation of services has created pharmacy and healthcare ‘deserts’, so even if organizations want to grow in those areas, they face an uphill climb with getting the right providers. Leaning into digital and telehealth may be a more sustainable model.

Leveraging targeted, data-driven strategies to refine care coordination and enhance patient outcomes will be essential for navigating the evolving healthcare landscape and ensuring long-term sustainability. 

5.  M&A Volatility and Its Impact on Patients

The healthcare sector continues to experience volatility from mergers and acquisitions, affecting retail health, payers and providers alike. In 2023, notable events included the Amazon acquisition of OneMedical and the withdrawal of national retail pharmacy organization from clinical trials. Looking ahead, potential developments in 2025 — such as the sale of Walgreens to private equity2 or the resurrection of the Kroger and Albertsons merger3— could disrupt patient access and operational stability.

These changes often impact patients directly. Retail health closures, for example, may leave patients without convenient local options for pharmacy and healthcare services. Consolidation of provider groups by large payers can lead to procedural adjustments that alter the patient experience. The migration of patients and providers amid these shifts will require careful navigation to ensure continuity of care and access.

Healthcare organizations must remain agile and informed, leveraging insights into patient and provider migration to adapt to the evolving M&A landscape. This adaptability will be crucial for maintaining patient trust and delivering quality care. 

Conclusion 

These 2025 predictions reveal a healthcare sector on the cusp of transformative change. From AI-driven identity verification and accelerated clinical research to strategic responses to “post post-pandemic” realities, M&A volatility and health equity challenges, these trends highlight the industry's resilience and adaptability. By embracing innovation and data-driven strategies, healthcare organizations can overcome challenges, safeguard patient interests and pave the way for a more efficient and equitable future. The integration of cutting-edge technologies, thoughtful data utilization and strategic planning will define the next era of healthcare, ensuring better access and outcomes for all.

Stay tuned for our next trends blog as we take a deep dive into AI-Driven Cybersecurity Modernization. 

 

References:

  1.  https://www.aha.org/news/aha-cyber-intel/2024-10-07-look-2024s-health-care-cybersecurity-challenges
  2. https://www.wsj.com/business/deals/walgreens-sycamore-partners-private-equity-deal-5d14c920
  3. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/12/statement-ftc-victory-securing-halt-kroger-albertsons-grocery-merger

 

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