Matthew Cox: Tech innovation should drive affordability
Technological innovation will reshape healthcare the fastest, respondents to HFMA’s “Hospital of the Future” survey overwhelmingly agree. But healthcare’s affordability challenge also ranks as a major impetus for change, with 66% of respondents saying it’s a driving force for transformation.
Thoughtful application of health tech could make a deep impact, strengthening quality of care and health outcomes, helping to eliminate the breakdowns and inefficiencies that increase care costs.
Today, one out of three Americans say they have made cuts to afford medical expenses, a recent survey found.a The most popular cost-saving measure involves prolonging a medication to delay the expense of refilling it. Others include skipping meals, borrowing money, driving less or cutting back on utilities.
But at least one — prolonging medication refills — could have the unintended effect of making healthcare more expensive. For example, multiple studies point to the cost of medication non-adherence, which reaches billions annually.
In this environment, emphasizing technological innovations that bring us closer to the Triple Aim — improving the cost of care, the health of populations and the experience of care — will be key to achieving sustainable transformation.
Here are three considerations for taking a thoughtful approach to tech innovation that supports affordable care and long-term value.
1 Look for opportunities to simplify processes for better care and service. At my organization, Corewell Health, that means leveraging technology in ways that make it easy for teams to deliver the right care to the right member at the right place at the right cost and at the right time. Through our health plan, for example, we are deploying advanced tech that will ensure clinical best practices are consistently applied in treating three high-cost conditions: breast cancer, colorectal cancer and lung cancer. The goal: to achieve five-year survival rates above the national average, while improving health and reducing care costs.
2 Expand primary care access for the most vulnerable populations. At Corewell Health, we’ve reimagined how patients under full-risk arrangements can access the care they need in real time. As you’ll see in HFMA’s “Hospital of the Future” report, we’re leveraging technology to shift toward team-based, technology-enabled, continuous care for our most vulnerable patients. This approach improves health outcomes while reducing avoidable emergency department visits.
3 Be open to what is possible. When leaders and teams hold onto old ways of doing things, they miss key chances to rethink what is possible for their organizations and the communities they serve. It takes courage to innovate, but as Steve Jobs once said, “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
By taking a thoughtful and strategic approach to applying tech innovation to healthcare, we can go beyond incremental improvements in care delivery, efficiency and outcomes toward transformational change that reduces care costs.
Footnote
a. Maese, E., “One-third of Americans cut back to cover healthcare expenses,” Gallup, March 12, 2026.
