Welcome to Gist Insights, where we share our thinking on healthcare trends and key issues facing the industry, and provide actionable guidance for CEOs and senior executives.
For more insights like these, subscribe to the Weekly Gist, an executive-level analysis of the week’s news delivered to your inbox every Friday.
Featured Insight
ED volume remains persistently down, but at higher acuity
by Gist Healthcare, May 28, 2021
As we shared recently, post-pandemic healthcare volume is not returning evenly. While outpatient volume is rebounding quickly, other settings remain sluggish, especially the emergency department. We…
Healthcare M&A heats up in first quarter
Judging from the level of deal activity across healthcare in the first quarter of this year, post-pandemic euphoria is truly taking hold. After a substantial, COVID-related dip across most of last…
ED volume remains persistently down, but at higher acuity
As we shared recently, post-pandemic healthcare volume is not returning evenly. While outpatient volume is rebounding quickly, other settings remain sluggish, especially the emergency department. We partnered with healthcare data analytics…
Hospital volume continues an uneven recovery
Though consumers say they’re increasingly confident in returning to healthcare settings, hospital volume is not returning with the same momentum across the board. Using the most recent data from analytics firm Strata Decision Technology,…
Taking a deeper look at vaccine hesitancy
The American public’s attitude toward COVID-19 vaccination has evolved rapidly since the end of last year. The share of adults who report they have either already been vaccinated or intend to get…
Virtual care for mental health is here to stay
The uncertainty and isolation of the pandemic has taken a heavy toll on mental health. Over a third of adults are currently experiencing anxiety or depression—more than three times as many…
Examining the economic pressures facing healthcare workers
As health systems look to address the “social determinants of health”, one obvious but often overlooked place to start is with their own employees. The left side of the graphic…
From insurer to diversified services business
Large health insurers no longer just provide coverage, but are instead repositioning themselves as vertically integrated healthcare organizations that span the care continuum. The graphic below shows five-year total revenue growth…
Selling Medicaid expansion to the holdout states
The American Rescue Plan stimulus package just sweetened the deal for the twelve holdout states that haven’t yet expanded Medicaid. In exchange for expanding eligibility to the roughly four million…
A year later, consumer confidence is returning
After a rollercoaster year of living with COVID-19, consumer confidence has returned—and remained largely stable during the winter surge of the pandemic, according to the latest data from a Healthgrades’…
Health systems falling further behind the industry in size
Even though signs point to a post-COVID spike in health system mergers, retailers, insurers, and other healthcare industry players already far exceed health system scale. Even the largest of the…
