I personally didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions this year. If I wanted to make a change, I did it when I thought about it and didn’t wait until the beginning of the year. In the healthcare technology space, we generally get the feel of what is heading down the path by either reviewing the current trends and/or looking in the past. It is no secret that new healthcare trends tend to model old healthcare trends…hello HIEs and Real Time transaction sets like CSI and Referrals…weren’t those around in the 1990s? With that being said, there are several initiatives that have been trending over the past several years and/or some that will make a huge impact this year. ICD-10 will probably continue to be the biggest change in the industry in October. Meaningful Use will also continue to be important. As mentioned in other posts, data and analytics tools are increasing in importance for all players in the industry but I believe are most important to payers. Provider reimbursements will more than likely continue to drop. The cost of health insurance will continue to rise with more of the burden shifting to the patient. The number of available plans will decrease. The number of prescriptions will continue to rise; however, at some point, I believe we will start backpedaling away from prescriptions as patients and providers become tired of the shear amount we are taking, the implications of side effects and costs. In years ahead, I believe there will also be an increase of holistic medicine…sort of a Whole Foods approach to healthcare. Telemedicine will be on the rise and the healthcare tourism industry will grow. Seems we have lots to look forward to with all the potential changes coming down the path.