There have been a great many changes in the healthcare industry in the past two decades, largely due to the globalization of the workforce and changing demographic patterns, and technological advances. The industry changed in terms of a reliance on hospital-based care to more emergency clinics, outpatient and nursing home services, and managed care. More hospitals merged, and many doctor's have banded together to form larger, more cost-effective, speciality groups. One of the largest and most obvious changes has been in cost of healthcare.
Health Care Changes
Over the past two to three decades there have been dramatic changes in the healthcare system globally, largely due to the improvements in technology, stakeholder expectations and increased globalization and access to care. Many of these changes have been the result of the costs associated with healthcare and their continual rise, changing demographics and psychographics, and new attitudes and media attention towards the industry. Overall, the healthcare industry has changed in terms of its previous overt reliance on hospital-based care to more private and emergency clinics based on neighborhoods, more home based and nursing services, and even a greater dependence on managed care (Williams, S., et al., eds., 2008). Much of this is a direct statistical cause of the aging Baby Boomer population and the global percentage increase in older adults needing more and more healthcare. Most experts see this aging population as a key influence on health care in both developed and developing countries causing the usage patterns for care to rise as well as greater pressure on individual and governmental spending on health care paradigms (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2012).
One of the most noticable changes in healthcare has been is the cost of care, machinery and medicines. For instance, in 1990, the cost per person was approxiomately $2,800/year in the United States. This rose to $4,700 in 2000 and then $7,500 in 2010, with recent estimates of over $10,000/annum. In addition, in 1990, 14% of all Americans had no insurance, rising to 16.3% or an additional 50 million individuals by 2010 (Ritholtz, 2010). Certainly, costs are concerns, but it is also important to note the viral changes and improvements in technology in the last few years -- innovations that have changed the lives of all stakeholders within the industry. For instance, physicans can now turn their Smart-Phones into an EKG monitor to transmit data in real time to a cardiologist; use this same smartphone to remotely diagnose rural patients, set up electronic alters, use new materials for organ and tissue repair, and innovative technologies like sound and electricity to speed healing (Chideya, 2012).
Most medical scholars actually see changes in technology contributing to both cultural and medical evolutions that have revolutionized healthcare. While computers were available two decades ago, the Internet and massive memory processing had not arrived for the general public. Less than 20 years ago only academics and scientists used the Internet. Yet today, electronic communication and data storage is a major contributor in data access, research, healthcare networking and monitoring, and personal and professional medical needs. This is particularly true when one looks at the manner in which data is used in the medical field. Two decades ago most medical offices still used cumbersom paper records. The modern use of data now includes the abiulity to computerize the office through telemedicine, administration, education, and particularly, electronic medical records (ERM). These changes allow for information systems in administration, primary care, insruance, individuals and specialists to interact in a more holistic and positive manner, following the patient from place to place without the need to redo expensive tests or wait days for needed information (Williams; Rowley, 2012).
From a public health perspective, there are now thousands of new diagnostic tools available to the medical profession allowing one to access more information in a timely manner. Data may be collected to help society; data analysis helps determine areas of high concern for specific pandemics or other healthcare needs, and how reform might impact costs and incent providers to build clinics or hosptials. Advanced analysis of disease vectors, trends in pandemics and certain illnesses endemic to modern life (diabetes, obesity, cornonary and renal issues) as well as healthcare concerns surrounding nutrition, lifestyle, lack of exercise and alchohol and now impacting even the most basic GP office. Epidemologically, medial data can help scientiests understand and hopefully prevent massive disease outbreaks globally; certainly this data can also monitor diseases like cancer, TB, and diabetes to find a more unified and robust global approach to healhcare challenges. This new perspective has, in fact, allowed a more unifed approach to medical information and provides a more synergistc way that physicians and healthcare organizations, the public, and specialists, not to mention insurance and governmental agencies, can effectively communicate (Gunn, 2005).
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