Using foresight methods to anticipate future threats: the case of disease management.
We describe a unique foresight framework for health care managers to use in longer-term planning. This framework uses scenario-building to envision plausible alternate futures of the U.S. health care system and links those broad futures to business-model-specific "load-bearing" assumptions. Because the framework we describe simultaneously addresses very broad and very specific issues, it can be easily applied to a broad range of health care issues by using the broad framework and business-specific assumptions for the particular case at hand. We illustrate this method using the case of disease management, pointing out that although the industry continues to grow rapidly, its future also contains great uncertainties.
Ma
Sai
S
Pardee RAND Graduate School, Santa Monica, CA, USA. saima@prgs.edu
Seid
Michael
M
D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D019468:Disease Management; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D010934:Planning Techniques; D012308:Risk Management / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States