Healthcare Trends Impact on Workforce in Chicagoland

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of current healthcare trends and their impact on the healthcare workforce, particularly in the Chicagoland area. It identifies key macro-trends, including economic factors, demographic shifts, lifestyle changes, technological advancements, and federal and state government policies. The report delves into specific challenges such as occupational shortages, including those of healthcare professionals and infrastructural limitations, and offers potential solutions to address these issues. It also discusses the impact of these trends on healthcare service delivery and the nursing profession, highlighting the need for increased awareness among patients, training for healthcare professionals, and stress management techniques for nurses. The report concludes with a summary of the identified changes and offers recommendations to help healthcare organizations adapt to the evolving landscape. The document is a valuable resource for students on Desklib.

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HEALTHCARE TRENDS

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Abstract
With the change of government and advancement in technologies, there can be identified certain
trends that necessitate enhancements in the healthcare system. The following report is a review
of the changes and future trends that will have an impact on healthcare services and workforce.
The changes include demographic, lifestyle-related and technological and federal changes in the
field. The last enforced change was Obamacare but after the establishment of the Trump
government, it is hoped that the industry is about to change.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
1) Identifies and discusses the macro-trends affecting the health workforce in Chicagoland.........4
a. Overall economy..........................................................................................................................4
b. Demographics..............................................................................................................................4
c. Personal lifestyles and behaviors.................................................................................................5
d. Technology (including biotechnology and smartphones)............................................................5
e. Federal and state government policies.........................................................................................6
2) Identification of current and projected occupational shortages...................................................6
Efforts to address these shortages....................................................................................................7
Recommendations for a solution.....................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
The following report elucidates the impact of recent changes in healthcare policies, strategies and
laws and their impact on healthcare organization and workers, It is essential to consider these
changes and make amends in the existing system to ensure that health and wellbeing of the
community and nation.
1) Identifies and discusses the macro-trends affecting the health workforce in Chicagoland
a. Overall economy
The US government spent about 18% of its national GDP on healthcare alone. This sum to about
$3.5 trillion. It is still not sufficient to provide uniform, accessible and quality healthcare services
to the people. The transaction in the healthcare department involves three parties instead of two.
They include, the service provider, the patient and the payer. The payer is the insurance company
that reimburses the service provider for the treatment. The next economic trend treats healthcare
as a commercial business and will be incentivized. The quality of service provided will
determine the incentives given.
b. Demographics
After the establishment of the Obamacare Act, that enables more and more people to access
healthcare services at subsidized rates and through medical insurances, the pressure on
healthcare institutions have been increased. The organizations need to be able to cater service to
increased patients at lower costs even though the resources and workforce of the organization are
not enhanced.

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It is known from a state census, that there has been an increase in the ratio of the ageing
population is increasing. They have been predicted to account for about 20.2 percent of the
population by the year 2025 (Managed Healthcare Executive, 2019).
Another demographic factor is racial differences that have an impact on healthcare services. The
largest ethnic group in the state has found to comprise the Latin Americans followed African
Americans. This accounts for another factor: cultural and religious differences (Ncbi, 2017). The
health beliefs of the patients have been formed by their culture and background and have an
impact on their ability to accept various healthcare approaches.
c. Personal lifestyles and behaviors
The tendencies to self-medicate and resort to online or other sources of information among the
public has caused various complications. For instances, the most common types of medicines
that people self-medicate with are antibiotics and analgesics (Wallace, 2018). Due to an
increased and frequent intake of antibiotics along with other evolutionary reasons, it has been
seen that most of them are not effective on bacteria anymore. The microbial groups have
developed more resilient colonies that are not any more affected by the medicines. Considering
the case of pain-relieving medication, people forget that when taken frequently there are side
effects involved like metabolic changes in the liver and kidneys. In addition, they are habit
forming, make the taker depend on them and reduce the pain threshold levels (Bretthauer &
Savin, 2018).
d. Technology (including biotechnology and smartphones)
The present trends in healthcare include the evolution of rural healthcare through which patients
can be provided medical help outside major cities and towns. This requires the use of

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technologies like telehealth and telemedicine and wearable healthcare devices are used to make
care accessible in remote areas (Meeker & Wu, 2018). Telehealth refers to a system of
transferring health-related information and services using electronic communication. Since the
number of healthcare professionals are limited and cannot be shared or transferred to the rural
location. This virtual technology, therefore, serves the purpose. It can also be used to deliver
healthcare to wherever the patient is an outside traditional healthcare infrastructure.
e. Federal and state government policies
The healthcare industry is bound with a number of laws and policies at both federal and state
levels. Since the profession is writ with many ethical and moral concerns, it is essential to
specify the limitations and best practice patterns through policies (Lumme, Manderbacka,
Karvonen & Keskimäki, 2018). It is believed that a new change in the policies can make the
premium costs lower than that already are. This can be achieved by returning the insurance
money after deducting the costs back to ensure making them lower the premium charges.
2) Identification of current and projected occupational shortages
The greatest shortage noticed within the area is in the number of healthcare professionals. Also,
the patients to ratio are highly skewed, requiring a single nurse to serve and be accountable for
the many patients. Next is an infrastructural shortage, more structures and shelters are required to
house an increased number of patients. Also, certain services require more specific structural and
infrastructural demands to provide better services and prevent chances of spread of infectious
agents.

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Due to the rising demand for natural resources and a need to change the way waste is disposed
of, organizations also need to evaluate how their wastes can be disposed of, recycled and
managed better.
With the given rise of an ageing population, more care homes and facilities are required that
allow them to live more independently (Cho, 2018). This requires both technological advances
and devices along with trained care providers that acknowledge and respect the wishes of the
aged.
Efforts to address these shortages
The government needs to encourage next generation to pick up nursing as a profession and
promote it through placement services in the universities more. The nurses need to be provided
with better perks and work environment. So that nursing is not anymore considered a toilsome
and stressful professions. Another, way to resolve the shortage would be if the academic
institutions provided nursing training at a subsidized rate. This would make nursing a viable
profession for people belonging to lower economic groups.
Recommendations for a solution
Increased awareness among patients and the general public is required to educate them about the
practices that may seem feasible at the moment but have long term consequences. It has been
pointed out that self-medication and consulting online sources of information have been an
accessible practice. However, it causes complications for healthcare professionals as well as the
people themselves. Online diagnosis is mostly incorrect and shapes the health beliefs and
concerns of the patient (Lau & Dunn, 2018). They are then less likely to accept the diagnosis and

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prognosis provided a certified healthcare professional if differs from the online source. As a
result, healthcare professionals have to put more effort to convince and treat a patient.
Training is required among the nurses to equip them with the skills to use technology and handle
the bulk. This training should only be educational or theoretical but should also assess their
ability to implement those skills.
Apart from the changes affecting the factors of how healthcare services are delivered, it is also
essential to consider the fact that how these changes affect the nurses as well. There has been
high stress and anxiety levels associated with the nursing profession. One of three nurses have
been noted to have such high levels of stress that in the long run it is bound to cause some mental
health disorders. They need to be trained to be able to equip the nurses with various techniques
that would allow them to relieve stress better.
Conclusion
From the above review, it can be concluded that there have been many specific changes that have
been made willingly or are natural constructs. Irrespective of their nature, healthcare institutions
need to be able to account for these changes. The report underlies some steps for resolution that
can ease the way for the care organization to accommodate the new trends and patterns

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References
Bretthauer, K. M., & Savin, S. (2018). Introduction to the Special Issue on Patient‐Centric
Healthcare Management in the Age of Analytics. Production and Operations
Management, 27(12), 2101-2102. Retrieved from
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/poms.12976
Cho, S. (2018). Health Record Tracking Enhancement based on Multimedia and Machine
Learning for Mobile Healthcare: Trends and Challenges. In Proceedings of the 3rd
International Workshop on Multimedia for Personal Health and Health Care (pp. 1-1).
ACM. Retrieved from https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3265006
Lau, J. L., & Dunn, M. K. (2018). Therapeutic peptides: Historical perspectives, current
development trends, and future directions. Bioorganic & medicinal chemistry, 26(10),
2700-2707. Retrieved from
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0968089617310222
Lumme, S., Manderbacka, K., Karvonen, S., & Keskimäki, I. (2018). Trends of socioeconomic
equality in mortality amenable to healthcare and health policy in 1992–2013 in Finland: a
population-based register study. BMJ open, 8(12), e023680. Retrieved from
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/12/e023680.abstract
Managed Healthcare Executive, (2019), Four healthcare policy changes to watch in 2018,
Retrieved from https://www.managedhealthcareexecutive.com/mhe-articles/four-
healthcare-policy-changes-watch-2018/page/0/1
Meeker, M., & Wu, L. (2018). Internet trends 2018. Retrieved from
https://relayto.com/cdn/media/files/JzrE69rBRKm9NhkUM2Fk_internettrendsreport2018
.pdf

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Ncbi, (2017), Healthcare Trends for 2018, Retrieved from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5902765/
Wallace, R. A. (2018). Tracking Healthcare Trends: Telemedicine. West Virginia Medical
Journal, 114(3), 6-7. Retrieved from https://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE
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