OBJECTIVES: Technology, data, and digital innovations are changing expectations of what is possible in reaching the triple aim of improving population health, optimizing patient experiences, and creating efficiencies. As healthcare continues to evolve, partnerships and collaborations across the payer, provider, tech & biopharma domains will be critical to driving more broad-based change.. We reviewed a broad subset of healthcare stakeholder collaborations to determine where deals are occurring, their alignment to companies’ strategic imperatives, and opportunities to drive greater cross stakeholder collaboration to deliver impact and value.

METHODS: A representative sample of 14 stakeholders were selected from payers, IDNs, PBMs, retail pharmacies, advocacy groups, and emerging tech players. Through secondary research of publicly available information since January 2016, detailed stakeholder partnership profiles were developed. Partnerships were then categorized into the triple aim goals of population health, enhancing experiences, and optimizing efficiencies. An evaluation of the strategic imperatives to determine the degree to which partnerships are being leveraged to further organizational goals was conducted and then confirmed through primary research with industry executives.

RESULTS: Traditional and non-traditional players are increasingly collaborating to provide value within specific therapeutic areas (TA) as well as brand/TA agnostic solutions. Most stakeholder types had invested significantly in partnerships focused on population health management, with fewer but a growing number of programs in driving better experiences and creating efficiencies. T Increasingly, collaboration partners are considering ways to scale programs and create solutions that are capable of being leveraged across systems and therapeutic areas, leveraging data and analytics as a key lever.

CONCLUSIONS: Collaboration is critical to healthcare transformation. Platforms that create safer collaboration forums and enhanced data sharing are likely to accelerate engagement. Additional focus is needed on how existing collaborations can deliver solutions capable of scale and interoperability.