Healthcare Strategy

Healthcare Challenges Technology is one of the main drivers of change in healthcare, and it is up to healthcare organizations to join the rest of the world in adopting new technologies to run their industry better. In most industries, something like electronic record keeping has been done for decades and nobody was wringing their hands about it. It is absurd that this is even an issue for healthcare companies.

The best thing is to stop talking about this as if it is an "issue" or a "challenge," and just get it done. If you were to design the health care system from scratch, of course everything would be electronic. The development and adoption of these technologies will improve the quality of healthcare immensely, so the only real question is not how will this challenge affect healthcare, but how quickly can healthcare get its act together and join the 21st century.

In addition to setting up EMH systems, resources will need to be dedicated to training employees on how to maximize these systems. Younger workers will be fine, but it sounds like some folks can barely turn on a computer and will be a real barrier to change, posing great challenge for management. 2. Access to healthcare is a major demand driver. The Affordable Care Act has sought to eliminate, for the most part, the number of uninsured in the health care system.

For healthcare providers, there is the risk that this will create new demand. For healthcare organizations that were already at, near or over capacity, this means that money and managerial energy will need to be found for expansion -- in many markets there is increased demand already for new healthcare workers (Kumbroch, 2014). This also means a growing need for training, in order to maintain quality levels. Finding new people, when some markets are already short on labor supply, will be a tremendous challenge going forward for healthcare providers. 3.

Advancing population is another issue that will spur demand. Most of these are going to be on Medicare, so not part of the ACA. They are already in the system, but as baby boomers get older, their need for healthcare is going to increase significantly. Wister (2009) notes that the aging population will present challenges, in particular capacity challenges, for health care, but it will also provide an opportunity to improve.

He notes that the largest health care effect is not likely to hit until 2035, giving lots of time to build up capacity, improve technology, and increase efficiency. But with the boomers entering their senior years now, healthcare organizations need to begin this process of improvement as soon as possible in order to be ready. 4. As noted above, training is going to be a huge problem, because of the need for new workers. Where there is competition for workers, maintaining a skilled workforce will be difficult.

The first step here will be to partner with schools to get better access to new talent. Then, you need training programs that help you build people's careers, and you need to outcompete for skilled talent as well, offering not just wage but career paths to entice people. 5. Pay for performance is a concept that can be explored, rather than a challenge. The other four are inevitable, this one is.