Hospital providers will continue to invest in IT technology to make sense of the vast amounts of data and partner with Big Tech to develop market-ready machine learning that serves as a diagnostic enhancer or can predict a patient outcome or downstream patient need.

Greater interoperability will still be the goal. Cybersecurity threats and ransomware attacks will continue.

Wal-Mart, CVS, and others will continue their retail roll-outs in an effort to remake primary care medicine. Hospital providers will refine their retail strategies by enhancing their telehealth capability and building-out retail services to include more than diagnostics and laboratory services.

Market consolidation will continue as health care systems seek more leverage with payers. More systems than stand-alone hospitals will look to value as a way to increase net revenue. Also, more smaller systems will investigate starting their own insurance initiative to test that business model.

The challenge of expanding access and reducing the cost of health care will continue as senior executives strive to position their hospitals for sustainable growth and financial strength despite the pandemic and other disruptive change.