Survey says: The top 5 investment areas for C-suite health leaders in 2022
PricewaterhouseCoopers’ 2022 Pulse Survey, which surveyed nearly 700 C-suite executives across all industries including 40 in the health industry, provides an important window into what those in corner offices—and perhaps some home offices, too—are prioritizing in the year ahead.
So what are health industry executives prioritizing in 2022? According to the 40 health industry respondents, it’s “digital transformation initiatives.” Here, we highlight this category and others that round out the top five investment areas for 2022.
1. Digital transformation initiatives (63%)
The category tops the list of investment areas for 40 C-suite executives who responded to the survey, with 63% saying that they’re investing in a wide range of digital initiatives such as mobile, remote, and no-touch ways to access healthcare.
The findings show that even as the pandemic no longer dominates headlines as much as it did in 2022, executives still seem to believe that at-home, mobile healthcare—popularized during the days of social distancing and lockdowns—has an important role in the industry’s future.
2. Hiring and retaining talent (55%)
The red-hot market for top talent continues to burn bright in 2022, and health executives are ready to invest major dollars to hire new employees as well as retain old ones. The PwC survey analysis notes in 2022, “all 50 states have reported one or more hospitals with a critical staffing shortage.”
3. New products and services in response to changing consumer behavior (53%)
In the race to stay ahead of consumers’ ever-increasing expectations, health executives will continue investing in new initiatives to build new products that boost convenience and comfort while offering effective health care solutions for consumers.
4. Supply chain resilience (48%)
From Personal Protective Equipment to contrast media, healthcare providers in the post-pandemic era have been plagued by supply chain woes. Critical shortages such as these have driven home the importance of shoring up supply chain resilience for executives, with nearly half of them saying they’ll invest in making sure they aren’t left so vulnerable in the future.
5. Corporate M&A or joint ventures (45%)
Rounding out the top five investment priorities for health executives is corporate mergers and acquisitions or joint ventures, according to the survey. Six out of 10 executives said that corporate M&A, joint ventures, and alliances “will be very important to their company’s ability to grow in 2022,” and of course we’ve already seen some big names living up to those expectations.
A busy year ahead
In addition to the top five investment categories for health executives, other areas where C-suite respondents said they’ll invest in the year ahead are increasing agility to better operate in a turbulent business environment (45%), reevaluating price strategies, i.e. hiring consultants to help explore price increases to make up for rising input costs (40%), ESG issues (28%), and divestitures and spinoffs (18%).