The health care industry: current issues and concerns.

In order to meet growing demands for health service with improved access, cost controls, and increased productivity, it will be necessary to reorder the current system of providing these services. It should be remembered that: (1) Health must remain high on the scale of social, political, and economic priorities. (2) New money alone will not guarantee either capacity or effectiveness of the current health system. (3) Health care is too often delivered at the time and place and in a way convenient to the provider rather than the consumer. (4) Man power production for the health industry must adapt new modes of training and licensure in order to provide more flexible use of valuable human resources. (5) Resourse allocation should be the central responsibility of areawide and state comprehensive health planning agencies. (6) The consumer must play a stronger role in decision making and be provided a greater range of choices among alternative forms of health services. This decision-making power together with enough information to make the purchase of health care a maningful decision may lead to some new questions pertaining to health care.