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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Top Trends Shaping Healthcare: Insights from Laura Dyrda, Editor-in-Chief at Becker’s Healthcare
00:08:23
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- [00:01]
A
This is Scott Becker with the Becker's Healthcare podcast. I am thrilled today to be joined by Laura Dearda. Laura is the editor in chief at Becker's Healthcare and the absolutely remarkable leader. Laura joins us regularly to talk about what are the top stories that she's watching in healthcare. Laura, why don't I tee it up and ask you to take it away? What are a few of the key stories that you're watching currently?
- [00:22]
B
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Scott. And I think, you know, of course, always a lot going on in healthcare right now. And one of the big things that we've been preparing for is our 13th annual CEO plus CFO round table in Chicago coming up November 3rd through 6th. And so in preparation for that, we reached out to several of the CEO, cfo, COO and other C Suite speakers who are planning to be there at the event and ask them what's the most underappreciated trend in healthcare today. So we were really trying to dig deep into some of the things that they're thinking about but aren't necessarily frontline news or the type of stories that come up all the time within the newspaper that we're seeing a ton thinking about policy, thinking about, you know, AI and all of those other kinds of things. And so the answers that were revealed to us were relatively striking. I think the biggest forces that they see reshaping health care today aren't necessarily those that are flashy or headline grabbing, but also some of the deeper structural and profoundly human trends. So many of the CEOs pointed out that workforce is still a defining issue for them. They're seeing staffing shortages, burnout, safety concerns that aren't really temporary crises, but long term strategic risks for them. So the executives told us that they're still focusing on retention, making sure they've got well being as a core part of their strategy and central to their operational strategy as well. And in their view, this strength of the workforce will increasingly determine the strength of the whole organization itself. CFOs also emphasize the financial and demographic pressures that are building beneath the surface as millions of Americans age into Medicare every year. Hospitals are seeing a growing demand for complex chronic care as well as reimbursement continuing to tighten. A lot of these. These folks are aging to Medicare. They might be selecting Medicare Advantage plans, which has its own set of challenges. And you know, I've heard from several CFOs that they're looking at ways to continue to work with those types of plans even as health plans and commercial plans are trying to figure out exactly whether they're going to stay the course with them or exactly what they're going to do. So that's been a really interesting conversation and point of debate that will, I'm sure come up during our sessions at the CEO and CFO Roundtable. But they said these demographic shifts, more than any singular regulation or technology, are testing the resilience of their health systems and likely will for the decade ahead. Both of the CEOs and CFO speakers that we connected with are also talking about the fast pace of change from new payment models to site neutral payment rates, payer consolidation and digital transformation. Healthcare is really evolving faster than ever. So leaders are describing this challenge of steering their organizations through uncertainty, balancing some of those realities while preparing for the future. That's constantly moving, especially looking at in the past there's been a lot of focus on strategy when they're trying to be risk adverse, wanting to make sure they can double, triple down on investments, not waste a single thing. But now they need to refocus that mindset and understanding. There might be times when they are investing in new partnership technology or building something from within that becomes outdated quickly or more quickly than in the past. And that's an okay thing. So I think a lot of leaders across the organizations are trying to grapple with that and understand what that means for how they're making decisions and thinking about the future. And then finally when it does come to technology and AI, they're generating a lot of excitement. But executives also reminded us that the real transformation comes down to that leadership, comes down to change that mindset and perspective, aligning people from their system in order to use innovation as a tool, not really a distraction or a shiny object. But how can they really elevate their workforce and elevate their approach, teaching AI literacy and coming into a space where they're feeling comfortable and confident with the technology and the data and all the tools that they have in order to move into a future where they can really be enabled to do incredible things, expand access to care even despite all of these shortages. So that was kind of a lot of what we heard from those executive leaders and I can imagine that will come into the discussions at the CEO CFO Roundtable in November.
- [04:32]
A
Laura, that's truly an amazing summary. When I read the headlines and talk to people, your thoughts about the workforce and what you're hearing seem to be exactly resonating with what we're seeing out there. I know, I saw this morning that Kaiser Permanente, the largest not for profit system as A huge strike going on that tens of thousands of workers. We've had 81 systems or so cutting jobs this year and more and more challenges between leadership and staff is trying to figure out how to staff things and make the numbers all work and everything else. Couldn't agree with you more on your summary, Laura. Anything else that's top of mind for you that you're watching currently?
- [05:12]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So kind of along those lines, we're keeping a really close eye on obviously the workforce trends that you mentioned as well as you know, hospital consolidation. Thinking about now that you know we've got the one big beautiful bill out there. Hospitals and health systems are looking into the future, seeing how it will impact their operations and trying to make sure they've got the right strategy strategy going forward. So you know, we have seen mergers and acquisition activity pick up for the third quarter and Kauffman hall recently released a report really detailing those details for the third quarter and expectations for that continued consolidation in the future. They found that there were 15 deals in the third quarter, nearly double from the second quarter and saw the year's first two mega mergers which were deals that helped drive transactors revenue for the quarter to a $8.9 billion, which is a six fold increase from the previous quarter. So it's just been really interesting to see that uptick and now, you know, hospitals and health systems feeling like they can move forward and understand what they need both from the acquired as well as the acquirer. It was fascinating to see that all of the acquirers in the quarter were nonprofit organizations including three academic systems and two government owned entities. And so, you know, it's just fascinating that those nonprofits are the ones taking the lead, trying to grow and making those transactions. While most of the sellers were also nonprofits, but there were four for profits that sold hospitals to the nonprofit entities. So it's interesting to see that as well as you know, understand that if the current pace holds and you know, we don't see the big surprises or new uncertainties unfold, we really expect that those mergers more activity to continue into 2026. We're seeing some of the large organizations really looking at in becoming more specific on their targets to perhaps focus on other regional health systems and in ways that they can grow at a more meaningful clip. So just keeping an eye on that and we'll definitely understand everything that comes with those types of consolidation, mergers, transactions, you know, it's a big challenge but also an opportunity for organization to share resources and figure out how they can build the right infrastructure to again, come back to the more technology enablement, more shared resources around staffing and services to really come into, you know, the next several years.
- [07:48]
A
Yeah, no, just absolutely fascinating. I mean, so many different issues circling around, and a lot of it comes back to team building and how you look at it and making sure you could take care of patients with the people you have and take care of things that need to be done with the people that you have. It's a fascinating summary of issues that are out there and so many moving parts. But so much comes back to labor and people still. Laura, I want to thank you for joining us on the Backwards Healthcare podcast leader Laura Dearda, thank you so much for joining us.
- [08:18]
B
Thank you so much, Scott. It's always a pleasure.