Trends and Development
The following trends and developments form part of the report “Proposed Concept Operational Content, the New Karolinska Solna University Hospital” from 29 May 2009.
The documentation is based on international contacts and study visits, interviews, Swedish studies on medical care services, seminars and workshops.
1. The role of the patient is strengthened, with a clear focus on patient safety, patient involvement and choice. Patients are placing higher demands on availability, choice and transparency and being able to evaluate the quality of different healthcare providers.
2. The medical and technological progress is followed by an organizational development. The themes replace the clinical structure to facilitate a multi disciplinary and patient orientated approach. New collaborative networks between University hospitals and other healthcare providers being developed.
3. Medical care and medical universities are integrated organizationally to strengthen clinical research and training.
4. The range of diseases is changing in line with demographic trends with an older population and an increasing prevalence of cancer as a result. Improved therapies are creating new groups of patients - the “new survivors” with severe chronic diseases or subsequent disabilities requiring extensive care.
5. Rapid increase in competence with availability of new technologies and new treatments, which need to be mastered. Minimally invasive techniques and treatment intervention replace open surgery and make it possible to stop the disease process with less severe consequences as a result, such stroke and myocardial infarction.
6. The rapid development of information gives rise to new ways of working, with improved evaluation, enhanced performance monitoring and increased safety.