Trends in Healthcare Management Industry

In the recent years, trends have emerged in the healthcare management industry, which includes patient protection, social media in healthcare, and drug shortages. Patient protection has largely been influenced by laws and policies in different nations. In the United States, the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) has resulted in the lowering of overall healthcare costs, whereby millions of individuals have access to insurance, thereby guaranteeing free preventative care. Social media in healthcare has stemmed from the increased use and adoption of the technology for health-related reasons by patients as well as healthcare practitioners. Moreover, drug shortages have emerged as a challenge that hospital pharmacists encounter and manage in different measures on a daily basis. The paper explores the trends in the three aspects as they relate to the healthcare management industry. Furthermore, it focuses on drug shortages as the topmost priority.

Nowadays, patients and healthcare practitioners employ social media in different ways. The available tools in these platforms include media-sharing sites, blogs, as well as gaming and virtual reality environments (Antheunis, Tates, & Nieboer, 2013). Furthermore, Facebook posts and tweets have become approaches that healthcare authorities and patients have adopted in communication. Practitioners in the field have engaged these platforms in encouraging patient engagement and advocating for the dissemination of accurate health information. It is also critical to note that social media has downsides concerning the creation of damage to professional images, legal issues, as well as the spreading of poor-quality information among others. Therefore, most of the professional bodies and healthcare institutions have provided guidelines, which endeavor to counter these risks.

Trends in social media in the healthcare management industry include social networking sites. The evolving social networking environment has provided a platform where professional medical communities have engaged on different issues. Besides, these systems have also provided secure access for members while blocking nonmembers from accessing critical areas. Furthermore, they have been funded through research funding, professional associations, as well as advertising revenues as seen from Sermo and Doximity, which are restricted to the physicians' network community. Moreover, the Medical Directors Forum allows medical directors to engage in a peer-to-peer interaction within a secure and verified environment. Undergraduate students and practicing physicians have interacted through sites such as the Student Doctor Network.

Microblogs have emerged as dynamic approaches of information exchange whereby users post considerable amounts of brief messages over a short period. For example, Twitter has allowed students and instructors to share on different issues such as evaluation of class responses and monitoring of student progress. Media-sharing sites have enabled users to view, share, and upload digital content on the Web. For example, YouTube has provided a resourceful platform that has availed educational materials, medical news, and healthcare-related entertainment (Gagnon & Sabus, 2015). Besides, virtual reality and gaming environments have become useful in educational centers that attempt to influence the decision-making abilities of individuals in real-life. Besides, they have become critical in applications such as psychiatric treatment and surgical stimulation. Therefore, social media in healthcare management remains instrumental in dealing with the dynamic challenges that arise every day.

The enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) envisaged multiple changes in the healthcare management industry. Millions have consequently benefited from accessing insurance, which they previously did not have an opportunity to enjoy. Moreover, the Act has made sure that the entire insurance plans cover the ten critical health welfares including, treatment for chronic and addiction issues (Maga & Lewis, 2014). Young adults have been guaranteed to stay within the insurance plans of their parents until the age of 26. The policy ensures that a majority of uninsured young people are covered, thereby improving their quality of wellbeing. Therefore, these benefits among others have been guaranteed by the Act, thereby increasing the level of patient protection in the long-term.

Other regions such Europe have formulated policies meant to advance the use of health-related data that would considerably benefit patients and the healthcare fraternity. They have focused on improving the level of scrutiny of clinical data, thereby aiding the understanding of diseases and other complications as well as the development of therapies (Groves, Kayyali, Knott, & Kuiken, 2016). Furthermore, the policies foster the adaptation to modern health systems. One of these policies has been data protection regulation. The policy has focused on supervising the use of ‘big data.’ Consequently, the analysis of such levels of information contributes to improving the quality of healthcare of patients.

Drug shortages have remained a challenging issue facing hospital pharmacists. In this section, the paper focuses on the trends on this matter. Prolonged shortages remain essential in this discussion. It is critical to note that despite the decreasing rates of new shortages, these problems are still hanging around. Thus, patients are still facing the consequences of such challenges. In the recent years, current shortages have nearly remained constant for the apex drug categories including, cardiovascular agents, antibiotics, as well as electrolytes among others (Fox, Sweet, & Jensen, 2014). Besides, other drug classes have stayed vulnerable to shortages. They include morphine, naloxone, dextrose, and fentanyl just to mention a number. Consequently, patients are still at risk of prolonged shortages of different drugs.

Complex challenges have emerged as an important trend in the drug shortage matter. The problem remains multifaceted as no single reason could explain its occurrence. Besides, the issue affects other nations across the globe, not only the United States. Popular myths have linked drug shortages to limited availability of raw materials (McLaughlin & Skoglund, 2015). In addition, some people have claimed that outsourcing is the leading cause of the problem. On the contrary, most of the drug manufacturing factories are located in the United States. In most cases, challenges could arise from supply shortages by different companies causing the problem. Besides, few businesses provide essential drugs for patients. As a result, an issue happening in one of the firms would cause a rippling effect on the pharmaceutical market.

The availability of the Web emerges as another significant trend in the drug shortage issue. Nowadays, online platforms have ensured pharmacists gain knowledge on this problem. The availability of such information on web platforms has facilitated increased awareness of the problem. In fact, online resources have ensured that healthcare practitioners discuss strategies for dealing with the issue comprehensively. Besides, the platforms inform pharmacists on how they could access different products and drugs to meet patient needs. The use of mobile applications has also come in handy in improving access to drug shortage information. Most of these platforms have allowed the search of drugs or their ingredients. Consequently, suspected shortages could be reported to relevant authorities. Therefore, online resources remain critical in addressing drug shortage issues.