“Your care, your way:” Learning from the Philips Future Health Index 2023

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  If we are good strategic planners, we’ll consider how trends will morph over time especially related to differences across generations – of both clinicians and consumers.

This last chart taken from the 2023 FHI identifies top factors in the choice of workplace for younger healthcare professionals — led by being and working at the forefront of AI in health care and connected care delivery, along with working in a culture of collaboration while maintaining autonomy and being freed-up to operate at the top of one’s license where technology can perform routine tasks.

Similarly, younger consumers — namely Millennials, Gen Z and Gen X members — are more likely to seek primary care and services in new and novel formats beyond the traditional medical home. Recent research from Wolters Kluwer explored this phenomenon, learning that these younger health care consumers seek convenience but also lower costs for medications and services.

Albertsons, the grocery chain working on its merger with Kroger, recently launched a digital health loyalty service which integrates with Apple, Fitbit and Google platforms, called Sincerely Health. The company explained, “As a grocery and pharmacy retailer committed to the health and wellness of our communities, we are empowering customers to have a connected and personalized view of their health across food, nutrition, activity, mental well-being and pharmacy services, enabling them to make more informed choices.”

This is one milepost event signaling the kind of pivot younger patients-as-consumers are expecting for their personal health engagement.

For a growing cohort of health consumers, their medical home will be, simply put….their home, as they define it. And a growing cohort of young clinicians appear keen to be part of this new life- and work-flow.