The world is getting older. In 2012 there were 562 million people aged 65 and older (8% of the global population). Just three years later, an additional 55 million people joined this group bringing the total to 8.5% of the global population. Unsurprisingly, very few Americans reported a desire to live their “golden years” in a nursing home or an assisted-living facility. Thus, we must continue to develop more cost efficient, passive, medical technologies that can enable the aging population with chronic medical conditions to live in their own homes versus assisted-living facilities.

The future of care management will revolve around episodes of care. By leveraging insights captured by episodes of care, healthcare organizations will have the ability to look across the continuum of care and determine how to better engage members, decrease costs, improve outcomes, and overall satisfaction for the right member, at the right time, with the right services.

Love it or hate it, value-based care is here to stay and is federal law. However, the largest component of human capital in our healthcare system (specifically for most managed care organizations - the nurse), has been detached from many of the discussions regarding the transition to value-based care, and the difficulties that lay ahead for patients, providers, and payers alike.

What determines the reality of our health and health care costs? Is it time spent with a clinical expert? Genetics? The resources and technology deployed in a clinical care setting? Practitioner experience? All of these factors play a role in determining our health status (and the financial cost of care), but they play a significantly smaller role than you may think.

Extracting knowledge from such large quantities of health-related data (often referred to as “data science”) that are captured in medical records, administrative claims, and many other disparate sources, may significantly enhance a care manager's ability to understand the biological, genetic, and behavioral underpinnings of a person's health.

The ever growing digitization, collection, and storage of health-related data has created new and exciting opportunities for care management professionals. Extracting knowledge and actionable insights from this data may lead to significant enhancements in a care manager's ability to understand the biological, social, and behavioral underpinnings of a member's health.