The Future of Healthcare

The global landscape for healthcare is changing. People are living longer, often with multiple presentations. Patients are expecting to become more involved in their treatment as they mine the Internet for relevant information. Advanced technologies are impacting the number and type of treatment options now available. Healthcare budgets cannot keep pace with the demand for services from a growing population. At the same time, hospital workforces are shrinking. What’s required is a shift in thinking from what can be done for patients to what can be accomplished with patients in a patient partnership. This shift in thinking propels clinicians from reacting post an adverse event (a Safety-1 approach) to a focus on the identification of clinical practices that are keeping patients safe from harm in the first place (a Safety-11 perspective). Contemporary healthcare organizations concentrate on prevention, learning from excellence, and supporting staff through the difficult times using coaching. Coaching is a developmental approach that can also be used to communicate better with patients about their care needs, engage them more powerfully in their treatment options, and enable them to take their place as an important member of the treatment team. This is called person-centered care, an approach in which healthcare organizations partner with patients to co-design and deliver to them the personalized care and services they need. Person-centered care is increasingly being delivered not just in hospital settings but also in residential and community care facilities and in-home settings.