How Do Demographics Affect Health Care?
Demographics affect health care by enhancing dynamisms in health care resource provision, the cost of care and conditions associated with each population group, according to Ensocare. Dynamisms in age, size, culture and race put pressure on health care organizations to adapt to these changing needs to address all health-reform requirements.
A major shift in aging population puts a great demand on the nation’s health care system, notes Ensocare. This major shift brings about a reduced and ill-equipped health care workforce to meet the needs of the growing aging population. Hospitals and health systems form more partnerships with other providers to ensure continuity in patient care. Hospitals acquire health care professionals and more health specialists in diseases and conditions of the aging population, such as chronic disease and hospice care, and allow the use of technology for care coordination.
Population change in racial diversity contributes to varied socioeconomic concerns such as lack of insurance, less access to health services to a particular ethnic group and predispositions to specific diseases, reports Ensocare. Whites are less likely to develop diabetes and face lower maternal mortality than the African Americans. Hospitals and health systems turn to assessing their population groups to accommodate specific health and socioeconomic needs.
Diversities in culture and religion also affect health care provision; for example, some cultures use complementary and alternative remedies that could have harmful effects when combined with traditional medicine, explains ENSOcare.
