Industry trends include online research, self-care, workforce shortage

In years past, when we were plagued by some mysterious physical problem, we’d call grandmother and ask her for the best home remedy for whatever ailed us.

Today, grandmother is the Internet. The majority of adults (78 percent) go online to find health information, searching most often for details on symptoms and treatments. Nearly one-third of us use the Internet to find information on diet and weight loss programs. And, about 30 percent of us go online for information on prescription drugs.

Not surprisingly, the popularity of online resources does not extend to physicians. More than two-thirds prefer to provide their patients information through printed materials rather than sending them to the Internet. Women are twice as likely to use online resources as men.
Changes in the source of health information are just one of the trends in healthcare toward the end of this century’s first decade.

Another trend is the increase in self-care, driven in no small part by the growing number of previously prescription-only medications appearing in over-the-counter formats in today’s drugstores. Add to that the growing number of self-administered diagnostic tests, and you have more people making their own judgments regarding what is wrong and how to treat it.
In a new trend from a policy standpoint, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced that effective Oct. 1, 2008, it will no longer reimburse hospitals for preventable mistakes through Medicare and Medicaid. Historically, hospitals were reimbursed for the mistake and for the cost of rectifying the mistake.

In addition, there is movement on a national level to establish a center to review clinical practice data to identify best practices to improve outcomes and variations in treatment. At least one presidential candidate has discussed the need for a national comparative effectiveness center to enhance government’s role in highlighting best medical practices and tying those results to financial incentives.

The competition for high-quality, experienced workers is becoming more intense. As a result, employer-provided health insurance is changing to include coverage for more procedures, including outpatient doctor visits, lab work, X-rays and medication.

The workforce shortage is particularly acute in the healthcare industry itself. The large numbers of aging baby boomers are affecting the healthcare system at the same time that the industry is experiencing a dramatic shortage of qualified workers. Price pressures may feed the tendency to hire lower-paid workers, which directly impacts the quality of care.

Another trend continuing to gain traction is that of medical tourism, or outsourcing your care to another country, which enables patients to not only receive medical care at greatly reduced costs when compared to a U.S. procedure, at the same time they enjoy international travel and often exotic destinations.

Finally, like nearly every other industry, the medical community is focused on becoming “greener.” This trend is driven by environmental and financial factors, but also by the growing evidence that many chronic diseases such as asthma, certain cancers and auto-immune disorders are linked to toxic pollutants.

The healthcare industry faces some unique challenges when it comes to becoming more environmentally conscious. For instance, medical waste incinerators used by healthcare facilities to burn everything from waiting room trash to operating room waste, are a major producer of dioxin, which is harmful in its own right but is also responsible for 10 percent of mercury emissions in the United States. Since medical incinerators are often the final resting place for PVC plastic, which is the most common kind of plastic in medical supplies, emissions can be doubly harmful to the environment and humans. PVC plastics are also the source of phthalates, which can potentially cause harm to many internal organs.

Using alternatives to PVC is one way in which many healthcare facilities are becoming “greener.” Another is by serving fresh, local and organically produced food to patients, staff members and visitors. More and more hospitals are striving to buy meat raised without non-therapeutic antibiotics, use milk produced without recombinant hormones and replace unhealthy snacks in vending machines with more acceptable choices.
Another industry trend is to encourage physicians to institute energy-saving practices into their office settings, including using eco-friendly lamps and bulbs and implementing recycling.

One final change is the introduction of courses highlighting the correlation between environmental issues and human health into the curriculum at many major medical schools.