Emerging Trends and Challenges in Healthcare Management

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Emerging Trends and Challenges in Healthcare Management

Healthcare Organization and Management · Chapter 1: Healthcare Management: Roles, Systems, and Global PerspectivesSection 1.6 · lesson 6 of 10510 min · free with a free account

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In this lesson

Eight trends reshaping healthcare and how to test which will last.

  • Describe consolidation, the outward shift of volume, and the workforce constraint
  • Explain how the move toward risk-based payment changes the value of avoided care
  • Identify operational questions raised by remote monitoring and price transparency
  • Apply four questions to judge whether a trend is durable

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Transcript

Everything said in the video, section by section (1,282 words). Read along, or search it.

Opening Case

One Capital Budget, Two Forecasts

Larkfield has capital for one big project, and its executive team is split. Priya Nair, the chief nursing officer, wants a new medical-surgical wing. The units run near full, and patients wait in the emergency department for beds. Tom Brennan, the chief financial officer, wants an outpatient surgery and imaging center, because inpatient demand will keep moving outward over a building's thirty-year life. Two forecasts, one budget. How should they choose, and which trends should shape the choice?

Trend One

Horizontal and Vertical Consolidation

Helen Wu, the chief executive, starts with the trends. First, consolidation: fewer independent organizations, through mergers and acquisitions. Horizontal consolidation joins organizations doing the same thing, like two hospitals. Vertical integration joins different points in the chain: a system buying physician practices, or an insurer buying clinics. Both change who you compete with, and your leverage when you negotiate. A big system is hard for an insurer to leave out of its network. For managers, informal referral ties become contracts, recruiting gets harder when the biggest local employer of physicians is a rival, and local decisions move upward. It also draws antitrust attention.

Trend Two

Volume Moves Out of the Hospital

Second, volume is leaving the hospital, for outpatient centers, the home, or no facility at all. Gentler techniques and portable monitoring drive it, and payers pay less in lower-intensity settings. Each destination needs a new capability. Outpatient work needs scheduling and throughput, because its margin comes from using a fixed asset within a fixed day. Home care needs logistics hospitals never built: routing staff, moving equipment, and triaging data from patients no one is watching. And the shift strands cost. Fixed hospital costs don't fall as volume leaves, so a plan for the shift includes what the empty capacity becomes.

Trend Three

Staff Are the Binding Constraint

Rosa Delgado, the HR director, brings the third trend. For most organizations, staff, not space or capital, now limit how much care can be delivered. Shortages are uneven by profession, specialty, and place, and training takes years. Burnout, meaning exhaustion, detachment, and a reduced sense of accomplishment from chronic work stress, compounds it. Each departure loads the people who stay, which drives more departures. That self-reinforcing loop is why retention deserves more attention than recruitment. So a plan needing staff Larkfield can't hire isn't a plan. It's a wish. Real cases use skill mix, tasks moved to the right license level, less clerical work, and schedules people accept.

Trend Four

From Fee-for-Service Toward Risk

Fourth, payment is moving, slowly and unevenly, from fee-for-service toward risk. Under fee-for-service, care avoided earns nothing, so prevention and follow-up are costs. Under risk, they're investments. Risk needs capabilities fee-for-service never built: knowing which patients you're accountable for, spotting who'll need expensive care, managing care outside your walls, and knowing your own costs. And the cash to absorb a bad year, which is why smaller organizations often join through shared arrangements. The hardest stretch is the transition, holding both contract types at once. One operational improvement can save money under some contracts and cost revenue under others, so know the volume under each.

Trend Five

Remote Consultation and Monitoring

Kenji Watanabe, the chief information officer, owns the fifth trend: remote consultation, and remote patient monitoring, which collects clinical data at home and sends it to a care team. Whether care works at a distance is a clinical question. The operational ones are his. Who watches the data, and how fast? What happens to an alert at three in the morning? How is monitoring work counted when it isn't an appointment? Is the clinician licensed where the patient is? How will it be paid? And who's left out without a device or connection? The trap is treating a digital channel as extra capacity. Unless its work is designed into someone's day, it lands on the same people who were already the constraint.

Trend Six

Consumer Expectations and Price Transparency

Colleen Lawson, the marketing director, adds the sixth: patients expect what other services offer. Booking online, knowing the price ahead, choosing a time, getting results fast. Price transparency rules now require hospitals and health plans to publish prices. Few patients shop on price at the moment of need. The bigger effect: competitors, employers, and insurers can all see the rates. Meanwhile, retail clinics and direct-to-employer companies chase the shoppable margin: routine, predictable outpatient work. That same work often pays for less profitable services.

Trends Seven and Eight

Population Health, Climate, and Preparedness

Farah Siddiqui, the quality director, names the seventh: population health, concern with the outcomes of a defined group, not only the patients who show up. Risk contracts give providers a financial stake in it, and tax-exempt hospitals must assess community needs. That pulls social determinants, the conditions where people live and work, into a hospital's scope. Screening for food or housing insecurity is easy to add. The real question is what happens to a positive result. Partnerships with community organizations usually answer it. Eighth: climate, supply chains, and preparedness. Heat, floods, and smoke raise demand just as staff struggle to get to work. Single-source products turn a distant disruption into a local shortage. And emergency preparedness is a standing federal requirement: a risk assessment, a written plan, communications, training, and exercises. Its value is invisible until it's needed, so it's under-resourced.

Quick Check

A Program That Pays Under One Contract

Quick check. Larkfield has some insurers paying fee-for-service and others paying under risk contracts. A new follow-up program cuts heart-failure admissions by a fifth. What's the financial effect of that program? Pause, and decide. It pays off under one contract only. Under risk, each avoided admission saves money. Under fee-for-service, each avoided admission is lost revenue. Paying off under both is tempting, because the care is better. But better care and better revenue only line up once most volume sits under risk.

Durability Test

Four Questions to Separate Lasting Trends

Not everything called a trend is one. Helen uses four questions to separate the durable from the passing. Does it have a structural driver, like demographics, technology, or payment design, rather than enthusiasm or a burst of funding? Is it moving one way across many markets, or is it local? Who benefits, and can they sustain it? And what would reversing it take? If reversal means undoing a capability that now exists, it's probably durable. By that test, volume moving outward, the workforce constraint, and supply chain exposure are durable. Payment reform's direction is durable, but its timing keeps slipping. A plan can be right about direction, and still fail on timing.

Quick Check

Grant-Funded Wellness Kiosks

Quick check. A one-year grant pays for wellness kiosks in a dozen local pharmacies, and right now they're busy. By the four questions, is that a durable trend? Pause, and decide. Probably passing. A one-year grant is a burst of funding, not a structural driver. It's local, and nobody has shown they'll sustain it when the money stops. Strong demand is the tempting evidence. But busy kiosks show enthusiasm today. They don't show who keeps paying next year.

Case Resolution

Fund Discharge Coordination Before Building

Back to the capital decision. Instead of choosing between two forecasts, Helen asks what evidence would settle it. How much of today's occupancy is cases that have already moved outpatient elsewhere? How much comes from discharge delays, not admissions? And what will each option's payer mix look like in five years? Nina Brooks, who leads discharge planning, answers the second. A large share of the beds hold patients waiting for a rehab or nursing home placement. So the team defers the capital decision by two quarters, and funds discharge coordination first. The daily pressure lasts longer than anyone wanted. In exchange, Larkfield doesn't commit thirty years of capital to a constraint that may be operational, not physical.

Key Takeaways

Trends, Durability, and Timing

To recap: consolidation shifts leverage, and moves decisions upward. Volume is moving out of the hospital, and new capabilities have to follow it. Staff, not space, are now the binding constraint. Risk-bearing payment makes avoided care valuable, but the transition cuts both ways. Test each trend for durability, and plan separately for its timing.

About Healthcare Organization and Management at UPI Study

Healthcare Organization and Management (Health 302) is a self-paced online course of 105 video lessons in 18 chapters, from health systems and the law to ethics, leadership, teams, strategy, informatics, finance, quality, human resources, marketing and evidence-based practice. It carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits.

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Why students take Healthcare Organization and Management with UPI Study

How hospitals and clinics are runHealthcare Organization and Management covers how care organizations are led and run: health law and ethics, leadership and teams, strategic planning, health informatics, budgets, quality improvement, staffing and marketing. It is a core course in healthcare administration and health management degrees.
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130,000+students helped with college creditsACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Where the credit goes

Universities that work with NCCRS

Healthcare Organization and Management carries a NCCRS credit recommendation. These universities work with NCCRS; some are UPI Study's signed partners. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.

Thomas Edison State UniversityThomas Edison State UniversitySigned partnerUniversity of the PeopleUniversity of the PeopleSigned partnerCharter Oak State CollegeCharter Oak State CollegeSigned partnerStrayer UniversityStrayer UniversitySigned partnerColumbia Southern UniversityColumbia Southern UniversitySigned partnerIndiana TechIndiana TechSigned partnerPenn StatePenn StateWorks with NCCRSSouthern New Hampshire UniversitySouthern New Hampshire UniversityWorks with NCCRSSUNYSUNYWorks with NCCRS +many more cooperating universitiesFind my college →

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FAQ

Questions students ask us

About Emerging Trends and Challenges in Healthcare Management

How does hospital consolidation affect healthcare managers?
Consolidation through mergers and acquisitions leaves fewer independent organizations and shifts negotiating leverage, since a large system is hard for an insurer to leave out of its network. For managers, informal referral ties become contracts, physician recruiting gets harder when a rival is the biggest local employer, and decisions move upward to the system level. Consolidation also draws antitrust attention.
Why does risk-based payment change the value of preventing hospital admissions?
Under fee-for-service, care that is avoided earns nothing, so prevention and follow-up are costs. Under risk-based contracts, each avoided admission saves money, so the same programs become investments. During the transition, an organization holding both contract types may find that one improvement saves money under some contracts and loses revenue under others, so it needs to know its volume under each.
What is burnout and why does it matter for healthcare staffing?
Burnout is exhaustion, detachment, and a reduced sense of accomplishment caused by chronic work stress. It matters because each departure adds load to the staff who stay, which drives further departures in a self-reinforcing loop. That is why retention deserves more attention than recruitment, and why realistic workforce plans rely on skill mix, less clerical work, and schedules people accept.
How can you tell whether a healthcare trend will last?
Ask four questions. Does it have a structural driver, such as demographics, technology, or payment design, rather than enthusiasm or a burst of funding? Is it moving one way across many markets? Who benefits, and can they sustain it? And what would reversing it take? If reversal means undoing a capability that now exists, the trend is probably durable, though its timing can still slip.

About the Healthcare Organization and Management course

How many college credits is Healthcare Organization and Management?
Healthcare Organization and Management (Health 302) carries a NCCRS credit recommendation for 3 semester credits. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities.
How much does Healthcare Organization and Management cost and what is included?
$250, paid once, with lifetime access: all 105 video lessons, a practice quiz after each, the graded work and final exam, and an official transcript when you finish. Students who want several courses choose UPI Study PRO instead.
Which universities accept UPI Study credits?
UPI Study has signed partner agreements with universities such as Thomas Edison State University, University of the People and Charter Oak State College, and works with universities such as Penn State, SNHU and SUNY. ACE and NCCRS have over 2,100 cooperating colleges that will consider accepting credits; the final decision is with the universities. Use "Find my college" on this page to check yours.
How long does Healthcare Organization and Management take?
It is self-paced with no deadlines. The 105 lessons total about 17 hours of video; most students add reading and practice time and finish in a few weeks to a few months, on their own schedule.
How are the exams done?
Quizzes and assignments are online in the course. The final exam is taken online with proctoring; a person on the UPI Study team checks assignments, usually within two days.
How do my credits reach my college?
When the course shows 100% complete, request the official transcript from your dashboard. It is sent to the college you name, and you can send it to more than one. Check your college first with "Find my college" on this page, or ask Athena.

Ready for the full course? Earn 3 credits in Healthcare Organization and Management.

105 video lessons, a quiz after each one, and the graded work that earns the credit. Recommended for credit by NCCRS.

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