Get to know John Adlesich and some of his healthcare thoughts about healthcare industry trends in 2021: Cooperative competition, or coopetition, is a key trend in health care. While some providers view big-box stores, nationwide pharmaceutical chains and other new entrants as threats, other organizations see opportunity. Their strategy is to leverage the capabilities of these power players to lower the cost of care, increase downstream market capture and focus on core specialty services while remaining highly connected to the patient. Offload financially draining services. Organizations like CVS and Walmart now offer basic primary care, simple diagnostic services and chronic disease management — services that health systems have struggled to provide and do so profitably. Identifying opportunities to partner with retail organizations to fill this gap can help simplify organizational services, increase access and provide better patient care at a lower cost.

John Adlesich about healthcare industry trends in 2021: After a turbulent, COVID-19 dominated 2020, healthcare leaders, policymakers, and the U.S. public are eager to know what 2021 holds. Pressing concerns include persisting and emerging pandemic challenges, the long-term effects of COVID-19, future emergency preparedness, and how the Biden administration will impact healthcare—notably, the future of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). 2021 healthcare trends fall into three main categories: healthcare policy, care delivery, and technology. The industry can prepare for the future by understanding critical areas to watch within these categories and which events and activities may affect the healthcare ecosystem.

John Adlesich believes that 2021 is a crossroads year for the healthcare industry. History gives us many reasons to doubt predictions. In 1916, Charlie Chaplin famously called the motion pictures “a fad.” In 1932, Albert Einstein said that nuclear power was not possible. In 2008, Steve Ballmer predicted the iPhone would be a flop. As these cases show, smart people may see the facts, but not the environmental factors that can shift the entire landscape. This was particularly true in 2020, a year that redefined “normal” and altered our world in ways we are only beginning to understand. In this environment, the hard job of accurately predicting future trends became that much more difficult. When I look back at my own predictions last year, almost none of them played out as I thought due to the pandemic and the complete upending of the national health care agenda. But now 10 months in, the pandemic’s true impact is starting to be understood. For 2021, job number one for the nation will be moving ahead with the largest mass vaccination program in our history, as well as improving our rapid testing capabilities and therapeutic treatments for COVID-19, in order to build our herd immunity and allow us to safely reopen and repair our badly damaged economy. This backdrop will permeate all our decisions this year, and directional trends will largely be influenced by how quickly we make progress in these areas.

John Adlesich currently works as administrator at Marquis Companies. His latest healthcare industry experience includes positions as executive director at Powerback Rehabilitation Lafayette (Genesis Healthcare) between Aug 2020 – Jan 2021, administrator at Mesa Vista of Boulder between Mar 2019 – Aug 2020, chief executive officer at Sedgwick County Memorial Hospital between Jul 2018 – Feb 2019, interim chief operating officer at Toiyabe Indian Health Project between Mar 2018 – Jun 2018.