Hospitals & Health Networks together with the American Hospital Association released a 2013 environmental check, a comprehensive review of the health care field that recognizes market forces likely to impact the field. The report identified 10 key themes which are generally not new to health care, but jointly indicate the industry’s sweeping changes. They are:
Information technology and e-health, such as ICD-10 execution, mobile health, big data, details exchange, and EHRs
- Insurance and coverage, such as State Medicaid programs spending and registration growth, consumer-driven health plans, and Medical health insurance costsPolitical issues, such as the decrease of Medical health insurance company rates, the Supreme Court ruling State Medicaid programs expansion unconstitutional, and the decrease of federal support for hospital State Medicaid programs and Medical health insurance programsProvider organizations and doctors, such as the increase of retail treatment centers, the creation of a culture of performance quality and responsibility, and the need for hospitals to operate more leanly
- Quality and individual safety, such as penalizations for low quality analytics, cost benefits opportunities in supply-sensitive care, care synchronization during hospital-to-home changes, and concern that public reports fairly and perfectly reflect hospital performance
- Science and technological innovation, such as the capability to build and enhance virtual company networks, the use of mobile phones and tablets, the growth of e-visits, and the facilitation of hospital care through wireless technology
- Human resources, such as trust between doctors and hospitals, demand for highly trained individual capital, and shortages of primary care physician
- Consumers and census, along with a development of adult and weight problems in children, an increase in serious conditions, middle-agers working past the age of 65, and families providing the majority of proper care to the elderly
- Economy and finance, along with a negative outlook for the charitable health care sector, a growth of hospital mergers and products, and $200 billion dollars of annual waste in health care