Vijayashree Natarajan, senior vice president and head of technology at Omega Healthcare, is at the forefront of healthcare information technology. With her extensive expertise, she has identified three key trends and imperatives that will shape the healthcare landscape in 2025 and beyond. These trends - cybersecurity, cancer informatics, and agentic artificial intelligence - hold significant importance for health system C-suite executives and other health IT experts.

Unveiling the Future of Healthcare Technology in 2025

Cybersecurity: The Pillar of Healthcare's Digital Transformation

As healthcare undergoes its digital metamorphosis, the convergence of clinical data, revenue cycle operations, and patient care becomes more intertwined. Only those organizations that can skillfully manage and secure these data streams will be able to thrive in this evolving landscape. The journey towards a more patient-centric healthcare system demands continuous collaboration, innovation, and an unwavering commitment to patient safety and data security. In an industry where data sensitivity is paramount, from personal information to electronic health records, the significance of robust cybersecurity measures cannot be overstated. Healthcare organizations must ensure pervasive micro-segmentation coverage for applications, server workloads, and users across all asset types.

With the health IT industry increasingly embracing AI and other digital technologies, the need for strong cybersecurity becomes even more critical. It is essential to safeguard the integrity and privacy of healthcare data to prevent potential breaches and ensure the trust of patients and stakeholders.

Cancer Informatics: Meeting the Growing Challenge

The CDC projects a 50% increase in the total number of cancer cases by 2050, leading to an escalating need for cancer informatics. As cancer rates continue to rise, the emphasis on high-quality data and cancer informatics to support public health initiatives becomes crucial. However, the exponential growth and complexity of cancer data pose significant challenges for management. Data originates from various sources such as clinical records, pathology reports, imaging studies, and genomic data. Skilled professionals must adopt a comprehensive approach to accurately integrate these diverse data sets and extract valuable information. This information then influences essential downstream activities like precision medicine, public health surveillance, new treatment guidelines, policy recommendations, clinical trial enrollment, and clinical research.

The importance of robust clinical data cannot be emphasized enough. By integrating innovative technologies with deep industry expertise and keeping humans in the loop, we can pave the way for a new era in healthcare where data-driven decisions lead to enhanced patient outcomes and more efficient, accessible healthcare services.

Agentic AI: Transforming Healthcare Efficiency

For healthcare providers and payers, artificial intelligence is becoming vital in minimizing fraud, advancing value-based care, and generating insights for risk assessment and identifying care gaps. The rise of generative AI expands these capabilities, enhancing various aspects from patient interactions to clinician documentation and even improving AI algorithms. Moving forward, agentic AI is expected to play a crucial role in boosting efficiency, tailoring treatments, and enhancing patient results.

When implementing AI systems in healthcare, organizations must prioritize creating a dedicated AI oversight team, developing contingency plans for potential system disruptions, providing comprehensive staff training and support, implementing timely monitoring and reporting tools, establishing robust data governance policies, and using predictive analytics to foresee potential issues. While these developments are exciting, implementing AI in healthcare comes with its own set of challenges and considerations. Organizations must carefully manage risks associated with data privacy, security, and the integration of AI into existing workflows.

Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication. Follow Bill's HIT coverage on LinkedIn: Bill Siwicki. Email him: bsiwicki@himss.org.