The US market remained dominant, accounting for more than 70% of global healthcare consulting revenues. Big-name mergers and Trump’s repeated attacks on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) drove great disruption, and both have the potential to radically remake the US healthcare market, albeit in different ways. One thing is clear however: Healthcare organisations cannot afford to stay in limbo forever. Whether this has led to incumbents rethinking their strategy in the face of big-name mergers, or organisations contingency-planning around the ACA, consultants have seen a surge in demand.
 
Globally, digitisation has played a key role in driving growth. Latecomers are moving from developing a digitisation strategy to implementation, while early adopters are now focusing on full-scale digital transformation. Ageing technology has traditionally been a problem for clients working in the healthcare sector, with IT infrastructure often low on the list of priorities, but this year has seen a significant shift in focus towards improving back-office efficiency.