Possible Trends in the Future of Healthcare

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As with many industries, healthcare is changing rapidly. New technology, greater client involvement, and a globally connected and diverse world are all affecting healthcare delivery. The changes also give patients a platform to express their satisfaction, or not, with the care they received.

While it’s impossible to predict what is next for healthcare, trends can indicate where frontline services, staff, administrators, and recruitment methods, are headed. To usher your hospital or clinic into the future of healthcare, you should be aware of emerging trends and consider adjusting your processes to mitigate or exploit the coming changes.

Emerging specialties

There are specialties rarely accessed today, but which could be quite commonplace in the future. Consider areas like gene therapy and immuno-oncology. In these fields, practitioners dig down into the very structure of a patient’s body, exploring DNA and the immune system to engineer healing.

Some of these areas are experimental at present, while some are gaining real-world traction. With more funding, time, and clinical trials, there is no telling what techniques will become available. Existing specialties, such as surgery, will also change with new technology, and general practitioners can expect a shift in treatment options and provider models.

For healthcare administrators and those in charge of recruitment, this means that your talent searches will also change. If your healthcare facility would benefit from bringing a new specialist on board, you will have to consider how to attract these experts and how to integrate new practitioners and treatment modalities.

Digital, personalized medicine and recruitment

Deloitte’s Center for Health Solutions released a report in 2014 with its predictions for what healthcare could look like in 2020. Many of the predictions center around personalized medicine, and how technology could change healthcare.

With more health data landing in the hands of patients, it makes sense that they are demanding increased access and more detailed information. Wearable devices are already helping people understand their bodies and fitness, and improved technology in this area will only expand that data set.

Information such as blood pressure, heart rate, bodily metrics, and activity can be tracked and shared with ease. Incorporating this data into real-time monitoring systems and patient management decisions is expected to be a growing challenge.

Automated systems can also provide information on practice performance and client health. Many of these work without human input to collect information on your facility, such as wait times or busy days. This data could be used to make predictions, such as when higher levels of staff are needed, or what medical procedures a patient may need in the future.

Patients are excited about new medical practice concepts, such as online mental health services, app-based medical advice, and healthcare delivery that relies on smartphones and other interfaces. These developments have the potential to improve access to quality healthcare for patients. As doctor shortages impact on service delivery, anything that can be automated should be automated, to free up valuable ‘human’ time.

However, on the physician and administrator side, such initiatives must be carefully implemented as they require data protection and have the potential for misdirected patient care. For example, a patient with cancer-related weight loss needs an oncologist, not a nutrition app.

Staying up-to-date with technology is essential for providers and will often require them to acquire new skills. There are legal and logistical issues around data security and health information privacy. Healthcare facilities will need to promote a culture of adaptability.

When recruiting, any new physicians and employees should be compatible with current and future practice culture. In many cases, cultural fit carries the same weight as education, hard skills, and job history.

The same data-driven information that will change healthcare delivery can also be used to optimize recruitment. Analyzing your healthcare facility and using that information, along with an analysis of past recruitment activities, gives you smart insights into what you can do to recruit successfully for the long term. Be it healthcare delivery or physician recruitment, informed decisions are ideal!

A need for greater diversity

A Future of Healthcare News article explores the need for diversity in improving access to healthcare. In a 2008 UCLA study, researchers found that students who attend medical schools that were ethnically and culturally varied, felt better prepared to care for patients from diverse backgrounds. This is an important consideration, as, according to the Pew Research Center, the US population will be 43 percent white by 2060.

At the same time, medical schools’ enrollment numbers are not reflecting the population at large. Medical schools will have to include students from a broader range of backgrounds to ensure quality healthcare for the patients of the future.

Inside of healthcare facilities diversity will also be a key factor. Recruitment plans will have to accommodate patients of all cultures and ethnicities to ensure that staff makeup reflects that of the community.

These examples are merely a snapshot of possible trends. Nevertheless, they all have the potential to impact on every aspect of healthcare provision. Everyone in the industry from human resources to physician recruitment and clinical practitioners, must be prepared to adapt to future changes.

Having good recruitment practices in place, and the help of an experienced recruitment firm, can help ensure your facility is staffed appropriately, now, and in the future.

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