"Health care will change more in the next five years than it did in the last 50," said Jeffrey C. Bauer, Ph.D., an internationally recognized health futurist and medical economist, who was a keynote speaker at Broker Expo in Atlanta. He is widely known for his proposals to create an efficient and effective health care system through multi-stakeholder partnerships and other initiatives focused in the private sector.

"We are rapidly heading in new and unpredictable directions," he said, giving these reasons:

• Every forecasting parameter was redefined by COVID
• Government health leadership is effectively dysfunctional
• Political actions are not based on objective or coherent analysis
• The quality of health sector data is dubious and misleading
• Historical models do not predict unprecedented outcome
• Profit has become the principal economic force in the marketplace

"We are changing direction," he said. "The COVID pandemic is a '100-year storm' creating chaos in the medical marketplace." However, "change creates strategic opportunity to reorganize a marketplace with new and different solutions," which he offered:

• Expansion of telemedicine applications
• Creative use of group appointments
• Development of next-generations PBMs
• Using influencers for behavior change via social media
• Expanded integration of physical and mental health care
• Creating patient opportunities to benefit from savings
• Implement artificial intelligence (very cautiously)

"Health care services in the United States are grossly overpriced," said Bauer, "and they cost a whole lot more than they do in other countries." That's why he believes that "all health care enterprises must adopt better ways of doing business with performance improvement tools (Lean, Six Sigma, etc.) that ensure care is delivered correctly all the time, as inexpensively as possible."