There were 1,900 deals in the space last year, according to Connecticut-based publisher Irving Levin Associates in its 2019 report “Seniors Housing & Health Care M&A in the 21^st Century.” For buyers, the cool kids on the block were long-term care facilities and physician medical groups, which led the charge for deal-making and consolidation.

Private equity is on the prowl for good deals in the healthcare space right now. There’s a lot of competition and money searching for an investment opportunity. Sometimes, those opportunities involve public companies looking to go private.

Despite headwinds that threatened to throw off healthcare deals, mergers and acquisitions were active in 2019.  Even big deals weren’t off the table, despite the uncertainty created by a federal judge’s 2018 decision that the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. In fact, some of the biggest deals of early 2019 were in the healthcare space.

Amazon.com has set its sight on industries outside the disrupted retail space. Why not healthcare? That alarming angle was stoked in 2018 when Amazon teamed up with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Berkshire Hathaway to cut health care costs.

The Looking Ahead series explores emerging leadership trends for public and private company executives and their boards.