Healthcare technology went through an overhaul in 2018. From telehealth to wearables and 3D printing, several new technologies emerged and many existing ones got a revamp. For years, the healthcare industry has been casting around trying to decide exactly who it serves. With the advent of value-based care, it’s finally clear who the client is.

The patient and family are firmly in the center now, and that’s driving a lot of disruption. Patient engagement ranked as the most critical issue for provider organizations in the coming year in a recent CDW survey of healthcare providers. But with this focus comes shifting consumer demands. The experts in healthcare are of the opinion that they have seen an acceleration of consumers running out of patience with the challenges they have engaging with the system. As a result, coming to the fore is the need for a much more seamless, digitally enabled, customer-oriented experience of care.

These new demands are prompting health systems to continue developing digital health tools such as coaching apps and personal electronic health records like those developed by Apple that can better enable and engage patients in their own care journey. However, this also means providers standing up the necessary underlying systems to provide a better customer experience like making it easier for patients “to find a doctor, schedule an appointment, pay a bill, identify or locate information that’s relevant to them, review or make sense of their results in a digital-oriented world.” It is an exciting year ahead for healthtech.