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// If you’ve never heard of CareOps, you could start at the beginning or accept the premise that care flows (or care processes, protocols, patient journeys, clinical workflows, or any of about 137 synonyms you might use at your organization) are at the core of care delivery itself. \\
For the third year in a row, healthcare operators have shared how they design and improve the care flows that drive their organizations. The results reveal not just trends—but a seismic shift in how care is provided, measured, and optimized.
Care flows (whether you call them processes, patient journeys, or protocols) are the engine driving care quality and financial outcomes. Organizations with streamlined, efficient care flows don’t just improve patient outcomes—they reduce costs, optimize resources, and gain a competitive edge in a fiercely competitive landscape.
With AI transforming healthcare, demand skyrocketing, and new care modalities emerging, the gap between those who invest in CareOps and those who don’t is widening fast. Providers who master CareOps will deliver higher-quality care at lower costs—those who don’t will struggle to keep up.
This report reveals the trends, challenges, and opportunities that are shaping CareOps in 2024. If you’re ready to lead, read on.
Here are the key insights in the 2024 State of CareOps Report:
Sections of the report for quick navigation:
The use of care flows among providers has held steady (80% in 2022, 84% in 2023, 83% in 2024).
But what about the 15% still resisting? It’s like top chefs running a kitchen without recipes, yet somehow expecting a Michelin star. Digging deeper, 60% of organizations not using care flows cite change management challenges—whether it’s lack of alignment, leadership buy-in, or outright resistance to new processes.
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The percentage of care flow design teams that include all four core CareOps roles—Clinicians, Product Managers, Clinical Operations and Software Engineers—jumped from 16% in 2023 to 36% in 2024.
In today’s world, it's hard to find a strategic objective where technology, especially software, doesn’t play a key role. While healthcare has lagged behind other industries, we’re seeing a clear shift. This year’s respondents show a strong uptick in bringing software engineers and product managers into the fold alongside clinicians and operations teams.
Care flow design is speeding up—89% of teams now complete designs in under three months, up from 82% in 2023 and 78% in 2022.
The tools used to design care flows haven’t evolved much. Many teams still rely on static tools, with over 30% juggling everything from physical post-its on whiteboards to digital versions. The use of dedicated care flow design tools remains low—only 7% in 2024, down slightly from 10% in 2023.
Despite more organizations adopting care flows, faster design times, and a mix of tools to support the process, using those flows in practice is far from guaranteed. While the number of implemented care flows is rising—63% now use more than six, and 45% have more than ten—this still isn’t enough.
The pattern remains the same: most care flows are poorly documented, and even fewer make it into daily practice. Whether stored in digital files, buried on intranets, or taped to a wall above the coffee machine, they often fail to guide real clinical action.
Processes may not have the allure of new tech or the simplicity of prescribing a wonder drug, but they are proven to cut costs and boost quality. Organizations serious about their financial health and the experience of both patients and clinicians know that investing in care flows pays off—often with compounding returns.
While 86% of care teams still rely on external tools to access care flows, it's promising that 54% now have at least partial access within their EMR. EMRs are slowly opening up, but we’re far from seamless integration.
Healthcare decision-makers often cite burnout and staffing shortages as top concerns, yet when we look closer, the tools in use tell the same old story: endless tab switching, Excel chaos, and late-night “pyjama time” catching up on work.
Are top performers pulling further ahead when it comes to data collection and analysis? We see:
In terms of access to data, we see a large increase in the number of organizations that enable their clinicians to see aggregated benchmark data: 28% in 2024 vs 17% in 2023.
In 2024, 67% of respondents iterated on a care flow at least three times over 12 months, matching last year’s numbers. Clinician feedback (39%) and performance data (37%) continue to drive these iterations.
AI is gaining traction in CareOps, with 55% of care organizations either rolling out, piloting, or currently implementing AI solutions.
For now, the majority of this effort is not going to anything that benefits care team or patient directly, with a solid 37% of respondents investing in AI to increase administrative efficiency.
Curious to see how this chart will evolve in the coming years:
Last year we started reporting benchmarks on a couple of important industry metrics related to CareOps: clinical workforce utilization rate, clinician time spent on non-clinical tasks and percentage asynchronous care.
Whereas 2023 benchmarks showed an almost normal distribution for utilization rate, it seems a sizeable group of clinicians are being driven from the 31-65% utilization rate bucket to >66%.
Let’s look at the other side of this coin. In line with the previous chart, a whopping +60% of organizations sees their clinicians spend 20% or more of their time on non-clinical tasks. This is up from 50% in 2023.
One wonders whether this is actually the complement to the 80% spent on clinical tasks or considering pyjama time this is just “extra time” that comes on top of an already full work schedule. In that case we should start to refer to “80% of time spent on clinical tasks and another 80% on non-clinical tasks”.
Asynchronous care is a vital tool in the CareOps competence toolbox because it eliminates the need for care team members to engage with patients during fixed time slots. It can help drive down time for non-clinical tasks, drive up utilization rate, can lead to a better patient experience (no waiting). Just as airline passengers have been able to book flights, check in, choose seats, add luggage and even reschedule trips without ever speaking to an agent, patients that can engage with their care team in a more flexible, self-directed way come with plenty of benefits for both sides of the service - more than ever with AI coming on the scene.
In 2024, we still see the minority of organizations adopting a form of asynchronous care. 70% are below 25% (this was 50% of respondents in 2023) and 5% operate at asynchronous care percentages above 75%, that’s about half the percentage in 2023.
Yes, we’re seeing progress—care flows are being designed faster, more teams are embracing the full spectrum of CareOps roles, and AI is making its way into healthcare. But it’s not enough. The majority of care flows still sit untouched, buried in static documents, and the rise of AI is more about automating admin work than driving real clinical impact. The gap between leaders and laggards is growing, and the organizations that aren’t making serious investments in CareOps are falling dangerously behind.
The message is clear: slow progress is no progress. Healthcare is evolving at breakneck speed—AI, new care modalities, and skyrocketing demand are reshaping the landscape. If you’re still relying on outdated tools, if your care flows aren’t embedded in daily practice, you’re setting yourself up to lose. The future belongs to organizations that treat CareOps as a competitive weapon—those who invest now will lead, while those who don’t will struggle to survive.
