Khristina Kisner

HCMT1005C 003
Module 10 Assignment 4: Future of Healthcare
The New Workshop of the World is a Tedx talk held in Philadelphia, PA, talking about
how healthcare will look like in 2020. The talk was held by Dr. Stephen Klasko the President and
CEO of Thomas Jefferson University and the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital System in
Philadelphia. He talks about his past as a medical student and what he wanted to change about
the health care system, and what he wanted still had not been changed. He talks in the video as if
the person watching is watching from the future, in 2024. He had some very interesting ideas,
especially the one where doctors critique their own hospital and say truthfully if they themselves
would want to be a patient there.
In 2020, every piece of healthcare documentation will be part of an EHR, there will be no
paper charts as every health care organization the country will be using an EHR for their patients.
What is needed according to Robert Rowley is interconnectedness of EHRs. This involves
having a single chart accessible to everyone within a delivery system (Rowley, 2014). Imagine if
a doctor in Ohio could log into an Enterprise chart for a patient that just moved from New York
and see all of their past medical history in real time. This will happen in the future, every piece of
your medical history will be seen by any doctor that is treating you in any setting.
Biometrics and healthcare will be together in 2020, in the form of a computer chip
implanted under your skin. Instead of an iris scan or a fingerprint scan, you place your wrist over
a scanner and your medical information is retrieved. Todays concerns or uncertainties by the
AMA that RFID chip implants have risks and that they cannot assure patients that the personal
information contained of RFID tags will be appropriately protected, will be a thing of the past
(Bacheldor, 2007). This concern was a part of the report Radio Frequency ID Devices in
Humans, presented by Robert M. Sade, M.D. (Bacheldor, 2007). They will become so popular,
like todays emergence of the Smartphone, that everyone will want one of their very own.
In 2020 there will also be a shortage of doctors because of the effects of the past. The
same issues that plague doctors today, will still be an issue as Charles Krauthammer wrote in an
article in the Washington Post. He mentioned talking to a friend and his friend told him the
reason why doctors are getting out of the medical profession is not because they hated being a
doctor, it was because of everything else. A never-ending attack on the profession from
government, insurance companies and lawyers, progressively intrusive and usually unproductive
rules and regulations, (Krauthammer, 2015). The current situation in 2015 will not resolve itself
in just five short years unless we stop with the non-stop regulations on business and healthcare.
Some regulations sound reasonable but impose huge burdens to those they directly affect (The
Economist, 2012).
The Affordable Care Act will still be in effect in 2020, no matter how unpopular it is to
some in America. There has not been a reasonable alternative given to replace ACA by anyone in
government. Many alternatives have been offered, but none of have been introduced as bills in
the Senate (Zweig, 2015). Not only will the ACA still be around in 2020, healthcare costs will
not be lower than they are today in 2015. If premiums are projected to skyrocket in 2016, how
will that change five years from now? One plan in New Mexico wants to raise premiums 50
percent, and that is just for 2016 (Demko, 2015). The whole payment structure for the ACA
depends on healthy young adults signing up and their premiums will pay for the others enrolled
who are sick and need the most resources (Levitt, 2013).

These are my ideas of what healthcare will look like in 2020, some might seem
pessimistic, but they are just my ideas based on what is happening in the United States today in
2015. Like Dr. Klasko, I am hopeful that healthcare will change and be innovative and patientcentric in the future.
Resource
Athena Health. (2015) The health leadership forum. Retrieved from
http://www.athenahealth.com/leadership-forum/author/stephen-klasko
Bacheldor, B. (2007) AMA issues ethics code for RFID chip implants. Retrieved from
http://www.rfidjournal.com/articles/view?3487/
Demko, P. (2015) Experts see big price hikes for Obamacare. Retrieved from
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/how-affordable-is-the-affordable-care-act-118428
Krauthammer, C. (2015, May 28). Why doctors quit. The Washington Post. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions
Levitt, L., Claxton, G., Damico, A. (2013). The numbers behind young invincibles and the
Affordable Care Act. Retrieved from kff.org/health-reform/perspective/
Rowley, R. (2014). What is the future of EHRs? Retrieved from
http://www.hitechanswers.net/future-ehrs/
The Economist. (2012, Feb. 18). Over-regulated America. The Economist. Retrieved from
www.economist.com
Zweig, D. (2015) No shortage of GOP alternatives to ACA, but no consensus either. Retrieved
from http://www.fiercehealthpayer.com/story/no-shortage-gop-alternatives-aca-bot-noconsensus-either/2015-04-30