Healthcare Management: Future Challenges (Essay Sample)

FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT
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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.
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 this forecast will enhance both private and public long-term health insurance coverage, which will avail many options for the elderly.
About three decades ago, organ transplant was the most expensive technology whose financing is still a challenge in the contemporary world. Today, many new sophisticated healthcare technologies are still on their testing stage in hospitals around the world. Health insurance barely covers the costs of implementation of new technologies in a significant number of nations. Experts forecast that there is a looming debate on the insurance coverage of costs associated with new technologies. With the increasing number of technological innovations in healthcare, a significant section of emerging treatment methods (based on the new technological innovations) will not be covered by health insurance. Consequently, pharmaceutical companies will refrain from developing technologically related healthcare solutions that are clinically beneficial, but financially costly.
Major lifestyle-relate health issues around the world revolve around obesity and smoking. Although governments have conventionally been handling lifestyle-related health issues with the essential concern, they are expected to be more involved in their efforts of changing behaviours to reduce healthcare costs. Businesses and governments will certainly introduce incentive-related programs that change health lifestyles, such as discounted membership fees of health clubs and non-smoking campaigns. Policies may be modified to encourage healthy lifestyle behaviours, for exam