Seth Whitmer Outlines the Growing Need for Healthcare as The Population Continues to Rise

Healthcare in question has always been a pressing issue in the minds of everyone around the world. The concept of personal health is an instinctive priority: No one would prefer to be unwell if they were given the choice. History has taken the concept of healthcare from an extremely localized and ungoverned body to an intricate system that both spans an entire country as well as being overseen by it.

As the world’s population has increased over the centuries, so too has the need for adequate healthcare systems grown right alongside it. More and more individuals need healthcare year by year, and this places a need for the system to evolve to accommodate everyone. Seth Whitmer, a healthcare executive, has an overview of healthcare systems and the pressure they are under to meet the needs of a rising population.

The Importance of Healthcare

It is important never to underestimate the precedence for health and healthcare systems within a country. With regards to personal health within the individual, it is only logical that not only would he or she place a high priority on their staying healthy in the present, but also that they would place a greater priority on preserving this state of health for their foreseeable future.

There are three priorities for healthcare: accessibility, price, and quality. These three points create a triagle, says Seth Whitmer, a healthcare executive. Every change in healthcare addresses one of these three pillars. For example, an increase in accessibility will lead to a decrease in quality. An increase in quality will lead to an increase in price and a decrease in accessibility. Currently most people want a decrease in price and an increase in accessibility and quality. This all also correlates to supply and demand which also applies to healthcare as well.

In order to best meet this expectation, Seth Whitmer believes a healthcare system in question must be properly functioning. One of the factors that holds the most weight in determining functionality is population growth: The larger a country’s population, the greater amount of healthcare services that need to be provided. If population increases outpace healthcare industry growth, this can be a serious issue for both the industry and the wellbeing of citizens.

The Problem at Hand

Within the next 50 years, Seth Whitmer claims that population growth is projected to do just this: Increase faster than the healthcare industry can keep up with. Just recently, the healthcare industry has become one of the largest employers in the U.S., and this burden emphasizes the needs of the population. From a business perspective, demand threatens to exceed supply: Aside from general increases in population, Americans are living longer, and thus need healthcare for a longer period of their lives. Both factors only exemplify the threat of population growth on healthcare systems, and innovation in tandem with adaptation needs to be implemented in order to ensure their survival.

Innovations in Healthcare

For the wellbeing of the people, healthcare needs to stay one step ahead of population growth. In order to curb the associated adverse effects, the mentality of working smarter instead of harder, becomes crucial. There are several methods and ideas currently being implemented towards this end which are seeing success, even in this early stage of change.

First, there is a noticeable shift away from the traditional hospital-based model for elderly citizens; instead, healthcare providers are looking at community and home-based care, in the hopes of extending its reach and optimizing efficiency. Instead of the elderly coming to a hospital for their ailments, more and more healthcare options are coming to them, and there is a mutual benefit. The vast majority of elderly citizens would prefer to stay at home instead of travelling to a hospital for care, and every individual who is at home frees up space at the hospital for other patients.

Next, there is a growing emphasis on viewing healthcare systems from an international sense, as opposed to a national one. According to Seth Whitmer, there are distinct and recorded differences in the quality of healthcare from nation to nation, and thus the blueprints for what ideas are working better than others can be found. While it is true that healthcare can be a competitive industry, cooperation is the key towards solving the issue of population increase, and it is up to each individual nation to initiate communication and collaboration in order to reach a greater understanding.

While the issue of population increase is a pressing matter for healthcare systems, there are solutions underway and the industry will continue to endure challenges in order to produce improvements.