“One thing I really like about the healthcare industry is that we’re at our best when we’re thinking long-term.” – David Jarrard, Chairman, Jarrard Inc. Executive Committee
Healthcare in the U.S. is fragile. From our research and our vast client network, we know the challenge today – and it’s a big one – is patching the cracks to keep things going short-term while applying the resources to shoring up the foundations of healthcare to be efficient and sustainable long-term.
At Jarrard, we enjoy unique perspective working with clients across the healthcare ecosystem – from hospital systems to health services companies to payers to the innovative tech companies shaping the future delivery of care.
In this report, we share that perspective, offering insight from our leaders on trending themes in 2025.
So what themes did our team pinpoint? Declining trust in the industry. Change coming via the new Trump administration. Leveraging the emotional (storytelling) and the technological (AI). The good news is there are clear actions healthcare organizations can take to address the challenges and opportunities created by these forces.
Are they quick fixes? Not so much. As Jarrard President Anne Hancock Toomey said, “It’s going to take sustained work from leaders to restore and then retain trust in 2025 and beyond. They can do this through authentic relationship-building and consistency between words and actions.”
Here’s what we asked our team:
- What was the most important trend(s) in healthcare in 2024?
- What were the biggest buzzwords in healthcare this year?
- What healthcare issue will have the biggest effect on your clients in 2025?
- What are you most hopeful about for healthcare in 2025?
- Talk about how a specific research finding from our surveys this year connects to the work you’re doing with healthcare organizations
We also asked each colleague a unique question to connect the dots between their area of expertise and recent Jarrard research findings. You can find those here.
Take a look at the dominant themes below, then scroll down to see answers from each of our colleagues. Want to see how our trends and predictions last year played out in 2024? Find those here.
2024 Trends
2025 Key Issues
Themes to Watch in 2025
Alarming decline in trust
Healthcare leaders are keenly aware of the mounting national distrust in institutions – and how it’s affecting this industry as we head into 2025.
Because where we are as a society – struggling with politics, social media duress, inequity, concerns about technology itself and so much more – is added fuel to public mistrust of healthcare.
“There’s a need to validate everything,” noted Kiah Calmese Walker, Jarrard senior vice president and leader of the firm’s change management work. “Healthcare leaders are in what seems like an impossible position of trying to recover their part of an industry when there’s mistrust all around them that affects how they’re able to connect with patients and communities and partner to build care models that work.”
Emily Shirden, senior vice president and co-leader of the firm’s Health Services & Technology Practice, pointed to the trickle-down effects from national leaders.
“We’re seeing potential cabinet members who like to talk about breaking down the establishment,” she observed. “When patients don’t trust the CDC and they don’t trust government-run healthcare organizations, that’s concerning because patients need to trust their caregivers. They need to trust the system of care that is established to make them healthier. It creates a difficult environment in which to build and maintain those relationships that are really at the core of people getting the care they need.”
In a recent Jarrard survey, we asked consumers whether hospitals and insurance companies are more focused on profits vs. patients. Some 68% of consumers said hospitals are mostly focused on profits over patients. That figure was 80% for health insurance companies. Meanwhile, in the workplace itself, trust has also declined. A significant group of nurses and physicians don’t trust their organization’s leader to be honest or make the right decisions for patients.
“There’s a real need and opportunity for providers and payers to work on that distrust: to improve it, to keep it from further eroding and to move it in the other direction,” said Isaac Squyres, Jarrard partner.
The rising costs of care and the opaque nature of healthcare costs are significant vulnerabilities for organizations across the industry.
“The more care costs, the more exposure healthcare providers have to a populist rejection of institutions because people don’t understand why things cost what they cost. That has played out politically this year,” said David Jarrard, firm founder and executive committee chair.
The unknowns of Trump 2.0
Trust wasn’t the only area where our team brought up federal politics and policy. No one knows exactly how the incoming presidential administration will disrupt the healthcare industry – but many expect it to.
With President-elect Trump tapping vaccine denier Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services and celebrity surgeon Dr. Mehmet Oz to captain Medicare and Medicaid, shake up the healthcare landscape is very much in the cards.
Tim Stewart, partner and Academic Health System Practice lead, expects to see academic medical centers to continue grappling with hot-button cultural issues like gender-affirming care and DEI initiatives – and to face more dramatic threats of overhaul.
“Many of the appointments in the incoming administration have been critical of hospitals and health systems, how they operate and the responsibility they have for the broken system,” Stewart said. “In this anti-institutional moment, there is going to be entrenched skepticism of whether the historic institutions are capable of changing enough or meeting people’s needs to address a broken system.”
Though all eyes will be watching D.C. closely, it’s also important to pay attention to the politics close to home.
“We take care of people in communities, and the states where we take care of people are where we need to focus our attention as relationship-builders and engagement and advocacy,” Squyres said. “As the national political environment becomes chaotic, there’s an opportunity to be a voice of reason and a calming influence by leaning into telling the effective story of healthcare in our local communities.”
The power of effective storytelling
Good work needs a good story. Whether a tech company showcasing a product that will alter the way consumers track their health, or a hospital presenting the full breadth of its work as a community partner. Unfortunately, all too often, healthcare organizations do the work but don’t have a story to match.
Consider this from a Jarrard 2024 national survey: Overwhelming majorities of consumers said they valued community work hospitals lead – from vaccine clinics to health education to training the next generation of healthcare workers. Yet just 38 percent of consumers said their local hospital provided enough benefit to the community. There’s a disconnect between what people prioritize from their hospitals and their awareness of the fact that hospitals are already doing those things.
Bottom line, hospitals, health systems, tech companies and specialty practices alike need to tell a better story. One that’s cohesive, comprehensive. One that’s told in a campaign-like way with a clear win that’s been identified – whether market share or passage of crucial legislation – and strategy and tactics that drive toward that win. Again, it applies to any provider organization, but it’s especially clear in hot-button issues like community benefit and its relationship to tax-exempt status.
This will be more important than ever as an institutions-skeptical administration takes office, and the American Medical Association announced this year it will lobby for stricter standards for nonprofit hospitals to justify their tax exemptions.
Effective storytelling requires the hard work of investing time into ongoing one-on-one conversation and thoughtful listening about what matters most to your stakeholders,
“It involves telling your story person-to-person,” said Teresa Hicks, Jarrard vice president and National Health Systems Practice lead. “The most powerful stories are exchanged between human beings. It’s not just something you put on a website or broadcast out, but it’s a conversation. We have to connect with the people we’re trying to influence, understand the perspective of where they’re coming from and what their concerns are and address that.”
Technology as friend and foe
The world greeted the rapid acceleration and deployment of artificial intelligence in 2024 with a mix of reactions. From excitement for the boundless possibilities. To trepidation about a Terminator-esque future.
Regardless of sentiment, adoption is rising, with six in 10 physicians and about a third of nurses using it in some form, according to Jarrard research.
That checks out with our client network, with many reporting they’ve already deployed AI-enabled technology.
On the front end of any major change, it’s rarely clear until after the fact when the tipping point arrived. Even so, with the stunning advancement of generative AI models over the past two years, there’s a strong feeling that we’re on the precipice of dramatic changes in care delivery driven by AI. Our team has the sense that the next year or so is likely to be transformative, with benefits like back-office efficiency, standardization across systems, more time with patients for clinicians starting to manifest.”
“I think in 2024 we saw the potential of what could happen, and in 2025 we’ll start to move beyond potential and see the results of what will happen,” said Alex Hunter, senior vice president and Health Services & Technology Practice lead.
Cervantes echoed this sentiment, saying, “We’re seeing increased interest. AI can be used to help nurses at the bedside create more seamless experiences for patients, consumers, and in some ways reduce burnout for physicians.”
Still, 2024 made clear that technology in general is a double-edged sword for healthcare. For example, Partner Kim Fox was struck by the volume of cybersecurity incidents that rose to the level of public awareness.
“I just got a letter from Change Healthcare yesterday about how my information was potentially accessed. It’s so frequent you almost shrug your shoulders, which is concerning,” she said.
Tricia Geraghty, senior vice president and strategic positioning service line lead, has been thinking about the relationship between technology and trust. “We’re going to talking a lot about how we break through the volume of misinformation that’s just out in the atmosphere. Dealing with misinformation is going to require wrestling with technology and understanding where and how people get their news and where and how people get their research and who’s trusted and which experts are trusted and what media is trusted and why. That all feels so interwoven with the technology that drives our lives.”
Secondary Themes: Partnerships, Medicare Advantage & Workforce
Partnerships
Unconventional and innovative partnerships will continue to be a focus for healthcare organizations of all stripes.
“Healthcare providers are making a choice to acknowledge and own what they’re great at, and then to partner and ‘trust and release’ with someone who can do it better on what they’re not so great at. That’s just healthcare at its best – there’s a real humility there, and it’s pretty powerful when it’s done well.” – Anne Hancock Toomey, president
“Our most successful clients are thinking about partnership in a really broad sense of the word – from how we are better partnering with communities to solve key health challenges, to how we are partnering together in interesting JVs or academic and regional combinations to support our communities.” – Lauren McConville, Partner and Chief Client Experience Officer
“Through a partnership, rural and community hospitals get a lot of great benefits they’re able to provide to their communities and employees. And they’re able to continue to provide local access to care for the long term.” – Letitia Fecher, senior vice president and Public & Community Health Systems Practice lead
All eyes on Medicare Advantage
Healthcare providers and insurance companies would all agree that 2024 was a tough year for Medicare Advantage. Many health systems began dropping MA plans altogether , and payers, undertook some careful decision making about where they will sell plans in 2025 and to whom. The incoming federal administration will not be quick to allow the decline of MA, however.
“Dr. Oz has a well-documented fondness for MA and for privatizing healthcare in general. If he had his druthers, more American seniors would receive their coverage through MA plans and fewer through traditional Medicare. Many seniors would readily welcome this shift – but providers have been telling anyone who will listen for the past several years that burdensome prior authorization procedures and denials of coverage often make it difficult for patients to get the care they need when they need it. – Teresa Hicks, vice president and National Health Systems Practice lead
“A lot of the smaller, more rural hospitals already struggle with Medicare Advantage, whether it’s prior authorization or in-network types of arrangements. With the new administration coming in. our public and community hospitals are at a unique disadvantage if MA continues to expand in its current form.” – Michael Hildebrand, vice president and Public & Community Health Systems deputy
Workforce & People
To state the obvious, nothing happens in healthcare without people. While many challenges remain when it comes to the healthcare workforce, there are some positive signs like stabilization in job satisfaction among nurses and hints that burnout is receding. We’ve also heard renewed efforts to expand the workforce pipeline, bringing more people into the field earlier. Then, investing and engaging with them more deeply once they’ve signed on.
“I’m optimistic that the attention that has been placed on the workforce over the last few years, post-pandemic, is going to continue, especially in the areas of training people to move into the healthcare industry at all levels.” – Pattie Cuen, senior vice president
“Our most forward-looking clients are really thinking hard about their people. They are getting back to gathering in person and hosting leadership summits that clearly articulate a bold vision forward and help people feel a part of the journey. They are investing in professional development for their functional teams to make sure they understand their craft and are ready to deliver at the top of their gain. There’s a continued recognition that we’ve got to create a workforce experience.” – Lauren McConville
Focus on the Numbers
Over the years, Jarrard has conducted extensive research into consumer, physician and nurse perceptions. Here, our team unpacks a few recent data points, predicting how they might affect healthcare’s challenges and opportunities in 2025. Their observations:
According to our research, personal interactions – a doctor who listens and friendly staff – matter most to consumers’ perception of healthcare quality. How do you advise healthcare marketers to integrate this into how they position their organization?
One of the cool things that has evolved with healthcare marketing has been how close marketing and experience work have gotten. Because your experience of a health system really starts the first time you see an ad for it or you go to their website to find a doctor. Those are marketing assets, but health systems are thinking more about how the experience that starts there carries them through the whole system.
So, the ability for marketers to influence experience and ensure that family’s time is being respected, that encounters are as seamless as they can be, that patient privacy is respected, that data is used responsibly – I think that’s where the future of healthcare marketing is.
– Tricia Geraghty
Half of nurses and a quarter of physicians say their leaders don’t involve them and their colleagues in decisions affecting their work. What can healthcare leaders do differently to make teams feel more involved in decision-making?
What nurses and doctors are saying about not being included in decision-making is not a perception problem – it’s a reality problem.
The pandemic ushered out a bunch of long-time nurse leaders, and now many organizations have nurse leaders who are newer to managing people. And we have a new generation of nurses that expect different things from their work experience, their employers and their ability to have agency over their careers. Training leaders on how to sincerely engage people and also elevate their concerns to a point where they feel like they’re decision-makers is not a skill a lot of people intuitively have, and it needs to be taught. Not just the willingness to listen, but the willingness to act on what you hear. – Tim Stewart
We’ve worked on more than 15 deals this year. Our research shows that consumers are evenly split on whether hospital and health system consolidation is good or bad. But they’re easily influenced by messaging that’s critical of consolidation. As more organizations are driven to partner to survive, how can hospitals effectively make the case for consolidation with the public?
So many healthcare organizations have been resistant about sharing their financial situation or the headwinds they’re facing because they want to paint a rosy picture. That’s admirable, but then when it comes time to make hard decisions, it’s really hard for their patients and communities to come along. We need to be starting to tell the story now: about the headwinds you’re facing, the slim margins you’re operating on, and sharing that story broadly before any changes are made. – Letitia Fecher
Two-thirds of consumers say they don’t trust doctors and nurses to use AI to diagnose and treat patients. Docs and nurses are also skeptical – nurses most of all. As this technology rapidly advances, what do health technology companies need to do to earn the trust of both patients and the clinicians using it?
To earn trust with established health systems and key constituencies like doctors and nurses, these technology companies need to do three things.
The first is to genuinely take the time to listen and partner with providers about the problems they’re having and build technology solutions that solve those problems.
The second thing is providers of these solutions need to realize that healthcare is a unique market that requires a nuanced approach devoid of bluster and ego. The third thing is to recognize that healthcare is too big for a tech company to try and solve the whole thing. Companies need to focus their efforts on a specific problem within the system: cardiovascular health, sleep, things of that nature. – Alex Hunter
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Another thing our clients can be doing is ensuring they are building and maintaining trust with their internal audiences. Because if you don’t have trust with your caregivers, with your employees, how in the world are they going to be able to go out to their communities and advocate on your behalf?
With caregivers, that includes ensuring they understand how these programs are being tested, what safeguards are in place, what this means for their day-to-day, for their future at the organization, to quell any misaligned fears before they start sharing them with their neighbors or communities. – Emily Shirden
In a national survey of nurses, we found nurses said poor communication is behind only pay and staffing as the biggest challenge facing nursing today. What should healthcare leaders be focused on in 2025 to level-up how they reach and engage their people?
Trust develops more quickly when there’s an aggressive, unrelenting and unapologetic approach to getting people the resources they need to do the work. We can see a leader is accountable when they say “Here’s what we’re committed to doing and here’s where we need your help and your voice, and this is how we plan to solicit your voice. We’re going to include you in all the meetings, we’re going to spend some dollars – put our money where our mouth is – to create strategies that get you the resources you need to do the work you’re struggling most in doing. – Kiah Calmese Walker
