Issues of the Future in Health

Abstract

Care of the patient, institutionalization, cost effectiveness, and quality control are the issues of the future in the field of health. With health expenditures projected to reach between $156 and $189 billion (8 to 9.8 percent of the Gross National Product) by 1980, the national policy on health care, both present and future, will be of major concern to the body politic. The patient will be seeking hegemony over the health care system to influence it to meet his needs. Institu tionalization of the system will yield greater effectiveness and efficiency. A new emphasis on cost effectiveness will necessi tate an evaluation of all methods of care by objective criteria that are concerned both with productivity of resources and with end results. Quality control of health care will become a new concern of the public, superseding the individual responsi bility of the single practitioner. Taken together, these devel opments will characterize efforts to attain the practical manage ment of a highly complex and diversified social endeavor con cerned with the supplying of human services.