Challenges for Healthcare Management in the Future (Essay Sample)

FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT
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Future Challenges for Healthcare Management
The healthcare industry is among the largest industries in terms of economic variance in a significant number of developed countries. It usually covers approximately 8% to 15% of any country’s economy, making it a sector of great significance to governments around the world. Other sectors of the government, such as education, tourism, telecommunication, and agriculture are no match for the healthcare industry. It is for this reason that governments make efforts to address its present challenges and try to forecast future challenges of the healthcare sector. Consequently, the forecast of future challenges of the healthcare industry and policies is an imperfect field of study. Although most of the previous forecasts of the healthcare industry turned out to be true, a few elements, such as a surplus of doctors, are yet to happen. The rising costs of healthcare, an increase in the number of elderly people, technology, and lifestyle-related issues of health are the most dominant future challenges of the healthcare management.
Government expenditure on healthcare has always been on the rise over the years. The rising costs in healthcare are expected to maintain the same trend in the next decade. Currently, the world’s spending on healthcare is about 18% of GDP. This figure is expected to increase steadily to about 21% of GDP in 2024. In the previous decade, it was perceived that government restrictions and managed healthcare policies would inhibit the rise of healthcare costs. Even though managed healthcare costs did have an impact on the costs of healthcare for a short while, recent healthcare statistics suggest that it is not significant for reducing the future costs in the sector. Governments’ efforts to reduce the increasing costs of healthcare are too insignificant to make an impact. Experts of healthcare forecasts predict that people will pay more out of their pockets to counter the rising costs of healthcare in the future.[Jaap van den Heuvel, Gerard C Niemeijer, and Ronald Does. “Measuring healthcare quality: the challenges.” International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance 26, no. 3 (2013): 270.]
According to the World Health Organizations (WHO), the elderly (people over 75 years) will increase from about 16 million to 20 million in the United States of America alone over the next decade. These figures were arrived at after studying the declining death rates with respect to the increasing life expectancy. Governments should avail more funds for long-term healthcare management strategies and for designing nursing home alternatives. If such measures are not tackled in advance, the elderly will find it difficult to address their health concerns because of a shortage in nursing home services. Advance preparation for t