Importance Of Health Forecasting

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1. Why is important to understand how the U.S. health care system is evolving and to forecast the short- and long-term effects of such changes? It is important to understand the U.S. health care system because forecasting is valuable to know what’s expected in the future for health care events, demands, and needs for and from population of the healthy and sick alike (Soyiri & Reidpath, 2013). Because the U.S. health care system continues to evolve and the population continues to face illnesses, it is important to intervene in providing preventive care and strategies to inform providers in advance to minimize health risks. Quantitative, Delphi, and predictions by recognized leaders are the approaches in forecasting (Jonas, Kovner, & Knickman, …show more content…

Through these surveillances, diseases and outbreaks could be improved with earlier interventions and preventions. The 4 main health forecasting principles are uncertainty and errors measure, focus, data aggregation and its effect on accuracy, and health forecasting horizon (Soyiri & Reidpath, 2013). With the health care system evolving, under the new health reform (ACA), changes in the roles and responsibilities of practitioners such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants due to physician shortages will help in decreasing medical service costs and expanding more care for patients (“The Evolving Health Workforce”, 2014). With the increased in insured consumers, more medical services are provided by the hospitals and it is important to decrease the number of delayed treatments due to the overcrowding emergency …show more content…

With the new and advanced technologies, health care system save on costs and increase life expectancies through researches and new interventions and treatments. As far as the new approaches for payments, it is important to keep economy growth to grow faster than health care expenditure and the payments toward providers to be manageable. New reimbursement methods enable hospitals to continue to provide care for the growing and aging population, especially those whose care aren’t compensated due to lack of coverage. New technologies such as new drugs, equipment, techniques and services enable providers to diagnose, prevent, and provide care in new ways that aren’t as costly and desirable. For example, new drugs and vaccinations could prevent future diseases and hospital admissions. New studies and treatment methods such as genetic studies on cancer and new methods to treat chronic diseases such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) may yield revenues and decrease health care spending through understanding the disease and treating it aggressively with treatments designed specifically for the root of the cause. For example, cardiovascular disease is one of the leading deaths in the U.S., though technologies such as angiograph and new surgical interventions have proven to diagnose the disease and surgically perform on patients

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