Forecast and Resolution for the New Decade

The infosphere has been full of predictions and resolutions for 2011, befitting the start of a new year.  Curiously, I've seen nothing to recognize the simultaneous arrival of a new decade.  The ten year horizon is much more interesting to me as a futurist, so here are my initial forecast and resolution for the new decade in health care.

The first task is naming the decade.  I propose "Crisis Teens," using crisis in the medical sense of a turning point where a life-threatening problem can get better or worse.  If the health care system in the U.S. were a patient, it would be in the critical care unit with a diagnosis of systemic failure and an uncertain prognosis.  The latest therapy (2010 health reform) isn't offering any realistic hope to improve the nation's health, and changes in the underlying circumstances of 2011 (Republican control of the House, legal challenges to the reform laws, increasing income disparity) suggest a strong possibility that the therapy will be withdrawn.  With no miracle cure on the horizon, the outlook for health care is uncertain at best and gloomy at worst.

This is not necessarily bad news.  Uncertainty can offer hope because it means that outcomes are not predestined.  Thoughtful, purposeful responses to anticipated changes can make a difference.  Consequently, my forecast for the coming decade is a range of outcomes (that is, successes and failures).  Many health care organizations -- particularly progressive, open-minded partnerships of providers, payers, and purchasers that recognize the need to work together -- will develop successful responses to the new circumstances.  Comparable numbers of organizations will either fail because they are not capable of adapting to new circumstances or will survive, barely.

For organizations desiring success, I propose the following New Decade's Resolution: to design an integrated health system that works, and then build it sooner rather than later.  Health systems with a good future will generally adopt a creative "do-it-yourself, now" approach that recognizes the enormous risks of waiting for politicians to find a viable solution later.

If anyone has a better suggestion than "Crisis Teens" to characterize the new decade -- or a different interpretation of the circumstances that will define it -- please reply with a comment.  (While you are at it, the past decade still needs a name.  The best suggestions I've seen so far are the "naughts" or the decade of "lost opportunities," and both explain the mess we are in today.)  I know from my first career as a weatherman that the best forecasts emerge from open discussions leading to clarification and even consensus.  A healthy debate is the key to a better understanding of the future and what we can do about it.  What are your forecasts and resolutions for health care in the new decade?