2022 Global Health Care Outlook

The report

To understand how stakeholders prepare themselves for 2022 and beyond as COVID-19 transits from pandemic to endemic, Deloitte discusses the current state of the sector and six pressing trends/issues shaping it this year. The report also outlines the way forward to help build resiliency and achieve improved health care outcomes in the new normal.

Viewpoints / key findings

Overview

• The healthcare industry is undergoing a long-awaited and far-reaching transformation. 2022 marks the second full year of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it continues to dominate health systems’ attention and resources on various topics of health equity and health outcomes, low vaccination rates, the interconnectedness of global populations, stress of health care workers and decreased demand for non-COVID-19-related medical care.
• Despite COVID-19’s many devastating impacts, it does present the health care sector with a powerful opportunity to accelerate innovation and reinvent itself, which kicks start and accelerates many changes so quickly such as shifting consumer preferences and behavior, the integration of life sciences and health care, rapidly evolving digital health technologies, new talent and care delivery models, and clinical innovation, that sector stakeholders and the consumers they serve face an unfamiliar world of remote working, virtual doctor visits, and a supply chain marked by shortages of medical supplies, personnel, and services. As a result, the sector is transforming to meet the new challenges.
• Despite continuing challenges on multiple fronts, there is a growing optimism that many nations are now better equipped to manage the impact of COVID-19. While there is little chance that the coronavirus will disappear altogether, if no new, significant variant emerges, experts see COVID-19 transitioning from pandemic to endemic.
• Health care stakeholders should remain alert, nimble, and flexible in dealing with the ongoing pandemic. At the same time, they will need to address the challenges and leverage opportunities presented by these trends/issues impacting the health care sector around the globe.

Six global health care sector issues