Mental Health and Chronic Condition Care – 2025 Health IT Predictions

As we wrap up another year and get ready for 2025 to begin, it is once again time for everyone’s favorite annual tradition of Health IT Predictions! We reached out to our incredible Healthcare IT Today Community to get their insights on what will happen in the coming year and boy did they deliver. We in fact got so many responses to our prompt this year, that we have had to narrow them down to just the best and most interesting. Check out the community’s predictions down below and be sure to follow along as we share more 2025 Health IT Predictions!

Check out our community’s Mental Health and Chronic Condition Care predictions:

Tony Vahedian, CEO at CCS
According to the Trilliant Health 2024 Health Economy Report, the physical and mental health status of Americans is unraveling, with a growing prevalence of chronic conditions. From 2020 to 2050, the percentage of U.S. adults with chronic conditions is projected to increase by 12.4 percentage points. This has led to a rising tide of patient burnout, one that in 2025 could reach its highest point. Without an end in sight, I predict that in 2025, those who live with chronic diseases (like diabetes) will suffer from increased burnout as they navigate the daily, consistent treatment of their conditions – as well as a new administration in the U.S.; potential health plan coverage changes – particularly for those covered by Medicaid and Medicare; and rising healthcare costs, on top of inflation.

Roughly 1 in 6 American adults are thought to have diabetes, including undiagnosed cases, up from 10% at the turn of the century, new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show. The CDC further found the total annual cost of diabetes in the United States to be $413 billion, making it the most expensive chronic condition in our nation. 2025 needs to be the year where we, as a healthcare industry, finally take a step back and ask why the number of patients living with diabetes continues to rise – along with considering the severity of cases for those living with chronic diseases – and then take the right steps to address this far too prevalent disease and the host of other comorbidities and complications (diabetes distress and more) that come along with it.

What are the right steps? Integrating medical devices, medication, CGM-specific education, and lifestyle coaching – with the help of predictive analytics – for each and every patient can and will bring about positive change when it comes to patient burnout in the year ahead. This will only be possible, though, if key players (device manufacturers; suppliers; providers; and health plans) can align and commit to collaborating specifically around solving the complexity of chronic diseases, like diabetes.

Julia Bernstein, Chief Operations Officer at Brightside Health
As we enter 2025, I believe we will see increased positive recognition of new modalities for treating mental health, including AI-powered therapists and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation therapy. Telemental health companies will continue to think critically about what it will take to revolutionize care and innovation moving forward through dynamic and strategic integration, instead of iteration. However, as with any new innovation, there is a need for transparency, education, and management of the treatment implementation with guardrails. It’s important that these modalities are best used as part of an integrated system of support with human clinicians and guardrails to improve mental health care.

Julie Frey, Head of Provider Product, Clinical Effectiveness at Wolters Kluwer Health
The demand for mental health services continues to put pressure on primary care providers who, despite not being formally trained mental health specialists, deliver 60% of mental health care and write nearly 80% of prescriptions for antidepressants. A recent survey from Gallop showed that 7 out 10 Americans prefer to be asked about their mental health by their primary care provider and are comfortable with them discussing mental health. Health systems cannot hire enough specialists to support this demand and PCPs will therefore continue to operate on the frontlines of mental health. In 2025 we expect to see new evidence-based tools that will help PCPs make informed medication decisions and assist in prescription tapering and titration of anti-depressants embedded into the care provider’s workflow.

Amit Kapoor, M.D., Chief Nephrologist at Strive Health
In 2025, I hope to see physicians and caregivers doubling down on meeting patients where they are, and one example of this is empowering patients to manage chronic conditions comfortably from home. This shift will prioritize a “polychronic care” model over hyper-specialized approaches, enabling value-based care entities to address multiple co-morbidities more holistically. With at-home diagnostic tools like blood and urine tests and advanced remote monitoring tools, patients can engage more proactively in their care in collaboration with their care providers, fostering better outcomes for chronic conditions.

Equity in healthcare must also take center stage to improve the overall patient experience. Controlling drug prices, especially for medications that slow disease progression but are often expensive, is crucial. Expanding access to telemedicine, supporting home caregivers, funding home-assisted dialysis, and improving transportation options will also make care more accessible and affordable for all. Meanwhile, addressing health literacy with patient education will empower individuals to understand their conditions and actively participate in slowing their progression. By integrating these solutions, healthcare leaders can redefine what equitable, accessible, and patient-centered care looks like in the new year.

John Showalter, MD, MSSP, Chief Strategy Officer at Linus Health
Health systems are aware they are facing a monumental health crisis of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias if they do not start identifying those at greatest risk sooner and get them the preventive care they need. That is why I expect innovative use of AI in 2025 to analyze patient charts and claims data to build cohorts of patients for cognitive impairment screenings. Digital health assessment tools will also be instrumental for efficiently screening these patients and determining who will need further evaluation and care.

Shaji Nair, CEO at Friska.AI
On the clinical front in 2025, we will see two significant shifts in care settings. First, the movement of chronic care out of traditional healthcare settings and into patients’ homes will accelerate. Second, endocrinologists will assume a central role in chronic disease management, given that diabetes care demands consideration of the impact patients’ lifestyle choices have on their medical needs. On the technology front, 2025 will see a surge in AI applications on the clinical side, including a heightened interest in solutions that leverage generative AI for early detection, treatment, and prevention of many chronic diseases.

I also expect to see greater utilization of data intelligence to support clinical decision-making around treatment plans. The emergence of endocrinologists as chronic condition managers is an ideal example of AI’s impact in the coming year. As these (and other) specialists adopt a lifestyle medicine approach to better manage their patients’ chronic diseases, they’ll need access to clinical histories and behavioral/lifestyle information. AI can pull data from EMRs, consumer health, nutrition and fitness apps, and connected smart devices (e.g., BP cuffs, scales, and glucometers), analyze it, then deliver actionable information to both the physician and patient in the form of care plans, recommendations, and alerts.

Caryn Hewitt, Senior Director, Consulting Services at CenTrak
Mental health will remain a key topic in healthcare, with an increasing focus on integrating mental health services with primary care. As more patients experience mental health challenges, healthcare providers will prioritize addressing these issues alongside physical health, offering a more holistic approach to patient care. These insights point to a future in which technology and human-centered care work together to improve patient outcomes, enhance workforce safety, and create a more efficient and secure healthcare system overall.

John Theobald, Founder and CEO at Healthcasts
A symptom of the ongoing healthcare staffing shortage is a growing disparity in physician coverage and increased rates of reported physician burnout, especially among primary care physicians (PCPs). A lack of PCPs has obvious negative ramifications on patients, but a bit less obvious is the detrimental impact on the time physicians have to educate themselves on the latest breakthroughs in medicine. As doctors lose physical access to other primary care providers (as well as to specialists), they miss out on a traditional and vital component of continuing education and patient care – the physician-to-physician consultation.

In 2025 and beyond, we will see physicians turning in greater numbers to virtual platforms to fill these gaps and to connect and learn from their colleagues in real-time. These short but meaningful consults and interactions will have a greater and longer-lasting impact, potentially improving the quality of care across the country in less time.

Farhad Modarai, D.O., Chief Clinical Officer of Population Health at Strive Health
Viewing healthcare burnout as just a pandemic-era phenomenon overlooks the deeper, systemic issues that have long affected the healthcare workforce. As we look toward 2025, addressing frontline healthcare provider burnout requires more than temporary fixes, it demands a cultural and structural shift. Nurses, physicians, and others on the care team must be empowered to focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional patient care. The organizations that will thrive are those that treat healthcare providers with the same holistic approach they advocate for their patients, focusing on the whole person.

Today’s healthcare workforce is neither able nor willing to sustain the grueling 60-70-hour weeks that were once normalized. Recognizing the importance of work-life balance and creating sustainable workloads is essential to fostering a thriving workforce. Moral injury is a growing concern, and it’s vital that leaders understand it extends beyond long hours. The emotional toll of feeling disconnected from their purpose, managing too many patients, and being unable to provide the level of care they aspire to fuels exhaustion.

Addressing moral injury requires more than offering wellness benefits; it calls for leadership to remove barriers and ensure teams are empowered to focus on care. When healthcare providers thrive, so do their patients. By investing in meaningful systemic changes and whole-person support for their teams, healthcare organizations can cultivate a more resilient workforce and a more compassionate care environment in 2025.

Gary Hamilton, CEO at InteliChart
Patient experiences will become increasingly tailored in 2025, with AI-driven insights delivering personalized health guidance. Predictive analytics will enable proactive management of chronic conditions and wellness goals, enhancing patient confidence and outcomes. Streamlined digital workflows will reduce administrative hurdles, improving access and satisfaction for patients while easing the burden on healthcare providers. This focus on personalization and efficiency will transform healthcare into a more patient-centric, seamless journey.

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time out of their day to submit a prediction to us and thank you to all of you for taking the time to read this article! We could not do this without all of your support. What do you think will happen for Mental Health and Chronic Condition Care in 2025? Let us know on social media. We’d love to hear from all of you!

Be sure to check out all of Healthcare IT Today’s Mental Health and Chronic Condition Care content and our other 2025 Health IT Predictions.

As we wrap up another year and get ready for 2025 to begin, it is once again time for everyone’s favorite annual tradition of Health IT Predictions! We reached out to our incredible Healthcare IT Today Community to get their insights on what will happen in the coming year and boy did they deliver. We in fact got so many responses to our prompt this year, that we have had to narrow them down to just the best and most interesting. Check out the community’s predictions down below and be sure to follow along as we share more 2025 Health IT Predictions!

Check out our community’s Mental Health and Chronic Condition Care predictions:

Tony Vahedian, CEO at CCS
According to the Trilliant Health 2024 Health Economy Report, the physical and mental health status of Americans is unraveling, with a growing prevalence of chronic conditions. From 2020 to 2050, the percentage of U.S. adults with chronic conditions is projected to increase by 12.4 percentage points. This has led to a rising tide of patient burnout, one that in 2025 could reach its highest point. Without an end in sight, I predict that in 2025, those who live with chronic diseases (like diabetes) will suffer from increased burnout as they navigate the daily, consistent treatment of their conditions – as well as a new administration in the U.S.; potential health plan coverage changes – particularly for those covered by Medicaid and Medicare; and rising healthcare costs, on top of inflation.

Roughly 1 in 6 American adults are thought to have diabetes, including undiagnosed cases, up from 10% at the turn of the century, new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show. The CDC further found the total annual cost of diabetes in the United States to be $413 billion, making it the most expensive chronic condition in our nation. 2025 needs to be the year where we, as a healthcare industry, finally take a step back and ask why the number of patients living with diabetes continues to rise – along with considering the severity of cases for those living with chronic diseases – and then take the right steps to address this far too prevalent disease and the host of other comorbidities and complications (diabetes distress and more) that come along with it.

What are the right steps? Integrating medical devices, medication, CGM-specific education, and lifestyle coaching – with the help of predictive analytics – for each and every patient can and will bring about positive change when it comes to patient burnout in the year ahead. This will only be possible, though, if key players (device manufacturers; suppliers; providers; and health plans) can align and commit to collaborating specifically around solving the complexity of chronic diseases, like diabetes.

Julia Bernstein, Chief Operations Officer at Brightside Health
As we enter 2025, I believe we will see increased positive recognition of new modalities for treating mental health, including AI-powered therapists and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation therapy. Telemental health companies will continue to think critically about what it will take to revolutionize care and innovation moving forward through dynamic and strategic integration, instead of iteration. However, as with any new innovation, there is a need for transparency, education, and management of the treatment implementation with guardrails. It’s important that these modalities are best used as part of an integrated system of support with human clinicians and guardrails to improve mental health care.

Julie Frey, Head of Provider Product, Clinical Effectiveness at Wolters Kluwer Health
The demand for mental health services continues to put pressure on primary care providers who, despite not being formally trained mental health specialists, deliver 60% of mental health care and write nearly 80% of prescriptions for antidepressants. A recent survey from Gallop showed that 7 out 10 Americans prefer to be asked about their mental health by their primary care provider and are comfortable with them discussing mental health. Health systems cannot hire enough specialists to support this demand and PCPs will therefore continue to operate on the frontlines of mental health. In 2025 we expect to see new evidence-based tools that will help PCPs make informed medication decisions and assist in prescription tapering and titration of anti-depressants embedded into the care provider’s workflow.

Amit Kapoor, M.D., Chief Nephrologist at Strive Health
In 2025, I hope to see physicians and caregivers doubling down on meeting patients where they are, and one example of this is empowering patients to manage chronic conditions comfortably from home. This shift will prioritize a “polychronic care” model over hyper-specialized approaches, enabling value-based care entities to address multiple co-morbidities more holistically. With at-home diagnostic tools like blood and urine tests and advanced remote monitoring tools, patients can engage more proactively in their care in collaboration with their care providers, fostering better outcomes for chronic conditions.

Equity in healthcare must also take center stage to improve the overall patient experience. Controlling drug prices, especially for medications that slow disease progression but are often expensive, is crucial. Expanding access to telemedicine, supporting home caregivers, funding home-assisted dialysis, and improving transportation options will also make care more accessible and affordable for all. Meanwhile, addressing health literacy with patient education will empower individuals to understand their conditions and actively participate in slowing their progression. By integrating these solutions, healthcare leaders can redefine what equitable, accessible, and patient-centered care looks like in the new year.

John Showalter, MD, MSSP, Chief Strategy Officer at Linus Health
Health systems are aware they are facing a monumental health crisis of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias if they do not start identifying those at greatest risk sooner and get them the preventive care they need. That is why I expect innovative use of AI in 2025 to analyze patient charts and claims data to build cohorts of patients for cognitive impairment screenings. Digital health assessment tools will also be instrumental for efficiently screening these patients and determining who will need further evaluation and care.

Shaji Nair, CEO at Friska.AI
On the clinical front in 2025, we will see two significant shifts in care settings. First, the movement of chronic care out of traditional healthcare settings and into patients’ homes will accelerate. Second, endocrinologists will assume a central role in chronic disease management, given that diabetes care demands consideration of the impact patients’ lifestyle choices have on their medical needs. On the technology front, 2025 will see a surge in AI applications on the clinical side, including a heightened interest in solutions that leverage generative AI for early detection, treatment, and prevention of many chronic diseases.

I also expect to see greater utilization of data intelligence to support clinical decision-making around treatment plans. The emergence of endocrinologists as chronic condition managers is an ideal example of AI’s impact in the coming year. As these (and other) specialists adopt a lifestyle medicine approach to better manage their patients’ chronic diseases, they’ll need access to clinical histories and behavioral/lifestyle information. AI can pull data from EMRs, consumer health, nutrition and fitness apps, and connected smart devices (e.g., BP cuffs, scales, and glucometers), analyze it, then deliver actionable information to both the physician and patient in the form of care plans, recommendations, and alerts.

Caryn Hewitt, Senior Director, Consulting Services at CenTrak
Mental health will remain a key topic in healthcare, with an increasing focus on integrating mental health services with primary care. As more patients experience mental health challenges, healthcare providers will prioritize addressing these issues alongside physical health, offering a more holistic approach to patient care. These insights point to a future in which technology and human-centered care work together to improve patient outcomes, enhance workforce safety, and create a more efficient and secure healthcare system overall.

John Theobald, Founder and CEO at Healthcasts
A symptom of the ongoing healthcare staffing shortage is a growing disparity in physician coverage and increased rates of reported physician burnout, especially among primary care physicians (PCPs). A lack of PCPs has obvious negative ramifications on patients, but a bit less obvious is the detrimental impact on the time physicians have to educate themselves on the latest breakthroughs in medicine. As doctors lose physical access to other primary care providers (as well as to specialists), they miss out on a traditional and vital component of continuing education and patient care – the physician-to-physician consultation.

In 2025 and beyond, we will see physicians turning in greater numbers to virtual platforms to fill these gaps and to connect and learn from their colleagues in real-time. These short but meaningful consults and interactions will have a greater and longer-lasting impact, potentially improving the quality of care across the country in less time.

Farhad Modarai, D.O., Chief Clinical Officer of Population Health at Strive Health
Viewing healthcare burnout as just a pandemic-era phenomenon overlooks the deeper, systemic issues that have long affected the healthcare workforce. As we look toward 2025, addressing frontline healthcare provider burnout requires more than temporary fixes, it demands a cultural and structural shift. Nurses, physicians, and others on the care team must be empowered to focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional patient care. The organizations that will thrive are those that treat healthcare providers with the same holistic approach they advocate for their patients, focusing on the whole person.

Today’s healthcare workforce is neither able nor willing to sustain the grueling 60-70-hour weeks that were once normalized. Recognizing the importance of work-life balance and creating sustainable workloads is essential to fostering a thriving workforce. Moral injury is a growing concern, and it’s vital that leaders understand it extends beyond long hours. The emotional toll of feeling disconnected from their purpose, managing too many patients, and being unable to provide the level of care they aspire to fuels exhaustion.

Addressing moral injury requires more than offering wellness benefits; it calls for leadership to remove barriers and ensure teams are empowered to focus on care. When healthcare providers thrive, so do their patients. By investing in meaningful systemic changes and whole-person support for their teams, healthcare organizations can cultivate a more resilient workforce and a more compassionate care environment in 2025.

Gary Hamilton, CEO at InteliChart
Patient experiences will become increasingly tailored in 2025, with AI-driven insights delivering personalized health guidance. Predictive analytics will enable proactive management of chronic conditions and wellness goals, enhancing patient confidence and outcomes. Streamlined digital workflows will reduce administrative hurdles, improving access and satisfaction for patients while easing the burden on healthcare providers. This focus on personalization and efficiency will transform healthcare into a more patient-centric, seamless journey.

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time out of their day to submit a prediction to us and thank you to all of you for taking the time to read this article! We could not do this without all of your support. What do you think will happen for Mental Health and Chronic Condition Care in 2025? Let us know on social media. We’d love to hear from all of you!

Be sure to check out all of Healthcare IT Today’s Mental Health and Chronic Condition Care content and our other 2025 Health IT Predictions.