The private sector is rapidly moving to develop new ways to provide patient care. This will heavily influence the ways academic health centers not only deliver care, but also how they educate health professionals and conduct biomedical research.

Current market trends include:

• Continued consolidation of healthcare markets
• Ongoing ventures into the “retail care” market, such as new urgent care clinics
• Outcome- or value-based care that drives new approaches to care delivery as well as population health management
• Increasingly empowered patients who will make more choices based on access to healthcare information and a growing variety of new healthcare wearables and isideables
• Hospitals will be challenged to adapt to new point-of-care models and respond to growing patient satisfaction tools
• The increased role of machines and new diagnostics
• Solutions to the management of “big data” will present a vast array of options with no one clear optimal solution

(from the Association of Academic Health Centers International)