Designing a healthcare system that promotes equitable health outcomes and delivers relevant services requires monitoring and reporting on health trends (Ministry of Health, 2017). Emerging trends impart knowledge on public health leaders, which helps them decide on quality improvement initiatives and changes in programs’ scope (Ministry of Health, 2017). Reviewing health trends, supporting evidence, information from stakeholders, current policies, and existing programs are necessary to generate meaningful changes and remedial actions (Ministry of Health, 2017). Leaders benefit from learning about trends because it allows them to make better predictions, plan ahead, and minimize uncertainty (Mumford et al., 2015).
Monitoring and forecasting trends helps inform decisions across all core functions of public health including health promotion, health protection, preventive interventions, and health surveillance (Ministry of Health, 2017). A broad socio-political trend is the heightened attention to health equity; recognizing trends that are shaping health inequities are of interest to leadership (Ministry of Health, 2017). A health equity lens influences priorities and decision-making such as who is hired or promoted to healthcare leadership positions, who is being consulted to ensure care is culturally sensitive, and how social determinants of health are involved (Courchene, 2019; Ministry of Health, 2017). Exploring trends improves patient outcomes by identifying determinants of disease, illness, and injuries to choose suitable intervention techniques (Ministry of Health, 2017).
Over time, identifying and monitoring trends can lead to changes in program development, health management strategies, resource allocation, risk management, legislation, and regulations (Ministry of Health, 2017). Trends analysis involves considerations of lead indicators, which change relatively quickly following an intervention, and lag indicators, which require relatively more time to arise (Canadian Institute for Health Information, 2021). Quantitative statistical analysis of academic literature, or bibliometrics, can unveil “hot spots” and trends in research (Guler et al., 2016). For example, examining the last decade worth of epilepsy genetics research with bibliometrics revealed ion channel diseases are a “hot spot”, with the SCN1A gene being the most studied (Gan et al. 2019). Moreover, the CKL5 gene is an increasingly popular target of interest for epilepsy research (Gan et al., 2019). These trends over years help scientists understand the etiology, physiopathology, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease (Gan et al., 2019).
Trends analysis provides foundational knowledge to support planning, action, evaluation and decision-making within public health (Ministry of Health, 2017). Healthcare leaders are better equipped to plan for the future when they have knowledge of research, trends, and issues. As a part of continuous education, healthcare leaders should strive to learn about health trends to encourage innovative thinking. Healthcare evolves due to innovations in products (e.g. new drug therapy), position (e.g. virtual care solutions), process (e.g. new model of care), and paradigm (e.g. patient-driven idea), which are influenced by trends (Weintraub & McKee, 2019). An awareness of trends and issues enhances the growth of healthcare leaders by generating new skills, new tools, and new ideas on how to best approach a health problem.
Canadian Institute for Health Information (2021). Identifying indicator top results and trends: Methodology notes. CIHI. Retrieved from https://www.cihi.ca/sites/default/files/
document/yhs-identifying-indicator-top-results-en.pdf Courchene, M. (2019). First Nations health transformation summit- Getting the relationships right. Assembly of First Nations. Retrieved from https://www.afn.ca/wp-content/uploads/ 2019/06/19-01-30-Health-Summit-Report-DRAFT-V4.pdf Gan, J., Cai, Q., Galer, P., Ma, D., Chen, X., Huang, J., Bao, S. & Luo, R. (2019). Mapping the knowledge structure and trends of epilepsy genetics over the past decade. Medicine, 98 (32), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1097/MD0000000000016782 Guler, A.T., Waaijer, C.J., Palmblad, M. (2016). Scientific workflows for bibliometrics. Scientometrics, 107, 385-398. https://doi.org/10.1007/S11192-016-1885-6 Ministry of Health (2017). Promote, protect, prevent: Our health begins here. BC’s Guiding Framework for Public Health. Retrieved from https://www.health.gov.bc.ca/library/ publications/year/2017/BC-guiding-framework-for-public-health-2017-update.pdf Mumford, M.D., Steele, L., McIntosh, T. & Mulhearn, T. (2015). Forecasting and leader performance: Objective cognition in a socio-organizational context. The Leadership Quarterly, 26, 359, 369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.02.003 Weintraub, P. & McKee, M. (2019). Leadership for innovation in healthcare: An exploration. International Journal of Health Policy Management, 8(3), 138-144. https://doi.org/10.1517/ijhpm.2018.122
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