Experts look into their crystal balls
• "Our interpretation, based on everyone facing labor shortages in the health industry in general, is that we’re going to have to increase the skill level of staff, particularly clinical staff. Clinical staff will have to be trained to treat outpatients, in terms of their recovery, the types of patients that come in, and the fact that they’re treated and released."
— Jennifer Marks, MPH, Acute Care Product Manager at SMG Marketing in Chicago
• "I can see competition for staff increasing very dramatically. We know there is a shortage of nurses. . . . Hospitals are raising salaries to levels we can’t possibly compete against. There are still nurses who don’t want to work in hospitals, but as hospitals open more and more surgery centers, I can see them stealing staff. . . . Competition is getting bitter over staff."
— Lawrence Pinkner, MD, Immediate Past President of the San Diego-based American Association of Ambulatory Surgery Centers and President of the SurgiCenter of Baltimore
• "The staff will be complemented with robotic technology — not to take a role away from him or her, but to allow an RN to be more available to assess, plan, implement, and evaluate care. The [outpatient] manager probably will become the buying agent, staff manager, scheduler, etc., as new tools help to decrease the stress and time needed for these many activities. For example, buying cooperatives will take care of the product evaluations and ordering, while new patient and staff automatic scheduling systems will manage these aspects. . . . Patients will receive most of their health care information on the Internet, so hospitals and providers will start to use this media more and more. . . . All readers should become very astute in computerized learning."
— Kay Ball, RN, BSN, MSA, CNOR, FAAN, educator/consultant/author in Lewis Center, OH, and past president of the Denver-based Association of periOperative Registered Nurses
• "With increased deeming responsibilities by regulatory bodies, accrediting organizations must become even more sophisticated and sensitive to public demand for quality and safety. . . . It will not be business as usual. . . . In 25 years, I would be surprised if there were any health care practices without some sort of quality oversight."
— John Burke, PhD, Executive Director and CEO, Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, Wilmette, IL
• "We’re looking at alternative methods for [accreditation] evaluation that don’t need time on site. For example, we’d look at performance measurement data or self-assessment data, in which organizations assess their own compliance with standards."
— Carol Gilhooley, Director for Accreditation Process Improvement, Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, Oakbrook Terrace, IL
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