https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/the-future-of-healthcare-finding-the-opportunities-that-lie-beneath-the-uncertainty?cid=other-eml-alt-mip-mck-oth-1802&hlkid=352e101e35a1452c983b598f944104cc&hctky=9502524&hdpid=c2f3cd34-a3e9-46d4-bc69-f4a9cc3b0ac9

Healthcare is a dynamic industry with significant opportunity, but cost concerns, uncertainty, and complexity can also make it an unnerving one. Substantial upside exists for players that can deliver value-creating solutions and thrive under uncertainty.

The intrinsic demand for healthcare services continues to rise in the United States, given population aging, the increasing prevalence of chronic disease, and the search for a higher quality of life. In addition to increasing demand, three other major factors make healthcare a dynamic industry with significant opportunity:

• Consumers, employers, and the government continue to see the financial burden of healthcare grow faster than their incomes or revenues—a long-standing gap unlikely to change soon. Furthermore, new challenges, such as the ongoing opioid crisis, continue to emerge. The result has been a continuing search for fresh solutions and reforms,  which has kept—and will keep—the industry in a state of flux.
• Major tectonic shifts are occurring, not only in regulations but also in three other areas: technology (both medical science and technology and the onward march of big data, advanced analytics, machine learning, and digital), industry orientation (the move toward B2C and rapidly rising consumer expectations), and reallocation of risk across the value chain. These forces are fundamentally altering the structure of the industry and basis of competition.
• The available headroom for improvement in healthcare (by most estimates, over $500 billion within the $3 trillion US healthcare economy) provides significant opportunity for value creation.¹

Industry growth, major changes, and strong value-creation potential make healthcare an exciting industry. At the same time, cost concerns, uncertainty, and complexity make it an unnerving one. Substantial upside exists for players that can deliver value-creating solutions and thrive under uncertainty. Indeed, our recent research into industry profit pools indicates that, on average, the industry is delivering value-creating solutions and consequently showing attractive profit growth. Between 2012 and 2016, total over-all healthcare industry profit pools (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA) grew at a faster rate than the combined EBITDA of the top 1,000 US companies.