“Your Healthcare. Your Choice.”

by Shain Waugh

The health systems worldwide are faced with challenges that will either force the embracement of new trends or result in organizational unsustainability. The confluence of trends include increasing demand for medical service, decrease in medical professionals, rising costs of service, uneven practice quality, increase of the uninsured, and misaligned incentives for medical facility by the respective country’s government. As a case in point of unsustainability, the United States of America’s healthcare system is ranks 1st in the world with the greatest amount of monies spent per person on healthcare case; however, U.S. is ranked 37th in the world for overall quality of service and 50 million of its citizens cannot afford health insurance according to the World Health Organization.

In fact, Americans are migrating internationally for better quality health, while emerging middle-classes of India and China are traveling to the Middle East for higher quality care. It is reported that fewer people are coming to the United States for their medical needs, which is in part due to American hospitals establishing foreign outposts to meet a growing demand as incomes and expectations rise.The globalize trend continues with the deficit of 2.4 million too few physicians, nurses, and midwives to provide medical intervention according to the World Health Organization. The situation will only worsen with the aging population, alteration in medial program standards, and increase in visa requirements. However, the migration of medical professionals such as nurse and physicians from countries as India, South African, America, Canada, and so forth has made efforts to stabilized the “sinking ship.”

Per globalize experts, the solution to the immediate trends are to encourage medical professionals to remain in their respective countries and to assist in improving the healthcare system. However, this encouragement will be a challenge within itself, cost billions in potential revenues for other countries, increase instability, and may simply not work.