U.S. Health Care in the New Millennium

Healthcare in the New Millennium

The Future Trends of Healthcare Delivery

The objective of this work is to present a new and improved healthcare delivery system for the new millennium. Future trends in healthcare and how they affect disease management, financial management, technology and the social aspects of health care delivery will be given consideration as well as integration of personal knowledge of the historical, social, ethical, technological and financial aspects of health care service delivery expressed as a vision for health care delivery in the United States.

Never before at any time in history have the challenges for the delivery of healthcare been so great. Neither has history witnessed the rash of serious new diseases emerging on a daily basis. The provision of quality, cost-effective patient care while managing to balance the needs of employees and physicians as well as trustees is a monumental challenge faced by healthcare executives. For the management who will rise to the challenge presented by healthcare provision in the millennium there must exist a basis of "management teams and technology to facilitate decisions based on evidence-based decision making." (SAS, 2005)

Many Issues and Challenges

Issues such as cultural, linguistic and ethnic-based issues in competent care provision as well as adherence to consistent processes and coordination of efforts among different branches of healthcare provision in the initiative to enhance efforts of provision of care as well as the precision of data collection and analysis are ones that are critical in handling of in today's world. In fact, the issues facing the healthcare industry are so varied and diverse that this work has chosen the issues of the nursing shortage as its' focus. The reason for this choice is that according to the World Health Education Initiative one of the biggest challenges facing the healthcare industry is the shortage of nurses which is stated to have a dramatic negative impact on the U.S. Healthcare delivery system. The urgency is illustrated in the fact that approximately 90% of healthcare organizations lack sufficient nursing staff to provide basic care and much less are the organizations able to accept new admissions. (Joint Commission Report, 2004)

Federal Mandate HIPAA 2010 Deadline Looming

The 2010 deadline set for the HIPAA security compliance of implementation of electronic medical records is drawing near. While aspects in healthcare such as mandatory reporting of errors, quality management of resources, and database management of patients are all importance and vital aspects in the provision of healthcare the proposal of a new initiative in education of healthcare professionals is suggested for implementation whereby the vision and goals of the nursing professional are held to exemplary standards, the student nurse is educated, initiated, and given all possible support not only while in college but throughout the career of this healthcare professional.

Requirements Stated by Those in the Industry

Data-driven clinical care, advanced disease management, enhanced quality and outcomes in reporting, acceleration of technological implementation, evolution toward electronic health records, leveraging the web to empower consumers, finding new solutions to old problems through collaboration, consolidation of functions in reduction of overhead expenses, managing capacity, addressing new markets, recognizing the problem of obesity and managing outsourcing are all stated as "action" priorities for the healthcare industry for 2005.