Onsights: The 5 things we heard loud and clear at HLTH 2023

What a week we had in Las Vegas at HLTH 2023!! In its 6th year and rapidly growing, over 10,000 people, 2,500 CEOs, 350+ speakers, and 850+ sponsors were on-site at the Las Vegas Convention Center for the leading healthcare innovation event.

During our first time on-site, we were able to spend time with both current and potential clients, audit the landscape and how brands are showing up, and learn about the latest trends and issues that healthcare is deeply focused on.

HLTH continues to grow its footprint and its success has led to two other additional events: VIVE, focused on digital health, and for the first-time next year, HLTH EU in Amsterdam.

The 5 things we heard loud and clear at HLTH 2023

1. AI was everywhere, and everyone wants it.

It’s important because it can solve real problems, like provider burnout. Clinicians have been flocking to industry because they aren’t able to do the things that drew them to medicine to begin with. AI can help not only drive clinical decision making, but maybe more importantly, allow providers to do what they do best – care. But right now, it’s a lot of point solutions. Figuring out how to integrate them and have interoperability that eases the patient and physician burden while improving their experience is the real work yet to be done.

2. GLP-1’s are upending the obesity and diabetes markets, but there’s some nervous energy bubbling up.

The simple fact is that GLP-1’s work and drive transformative outcomes for patients, but there’s a lot of concern over how they’ll be paid for. Companies like @weightwatchers and their Sequence offering are leaning in as critical to accomplishing their mission. Still, there’s a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. The market is already seeing an impact on legacy diabetes brands and bariatric surgery utilization.

3. Outcomes? Check. Prevention? Coming soon.

Healthcare companies have really leaned in on value-based and outcomes-driven models. And now those are the expected. What’s being asked now is what are companies doing to push preventative approaches to care. Data show that the U.S. could save $67 billion each year if everyone used a primary care provider as their principal source of care. In her main stage conversation, Alice Walton said the country will go bankrupt if we don’t make aggressive changes towards prevention.

4. Behavioral change was the not-so-quiet undertone to a lot of conversations.

The common sentiment is that while AI and the many solutions are profound, we can’t “tech our way out” of all our health challenges. It’s going to take behavioral science approaches within our systems and experiences to move people in small steps that feel natural and rewarding. Particularly if we’re going to reframe our healthcare approaches around a preventative mindset.

5. Personalized medicine is more than just drugs, it’s food.

It’s not a new idea to think of food as medicine (FAM), but the approach is nuanced and complicated. “If we eat the typical American diet, we get the typical American diseases.” But there’s a lot of misinformation. Like, did you know that broccoli is toxic to nearly 50% of people?! Companies like @Flore’ can test your gut microbiome and craft personalized probiotics that support a microbiome eco-system that controls as much as 80% of your immune system. This is an area I expect to see more and more from, especially as we continue our movement towards whole person health.

Keep us on speed-dial for additional coverage of HLTH in the coming weeks!