Environmental analysis

On behalf of the American Medical Association (AMA), we hope that this analysis will be useful to you and provide it to you below in PDF format (requires Adobe® Reader®).

The purpose of the Environmental Analysis report is to assist the AMA and the Federation of Medicine in planning for the future. While no one can predict for certain the future of health care, this report provides a description of the critical factors that will likely influence medicine and the delivery of health care in the 21st century. By presenting health care trends and our interpretation of their impact, we hope to stimulate thinking about the direction of change in medicine and how medical associations might work together to shape tomorrow's health system. We believe this is very important because the future of health care in this nation depends on the ability of physicians and their associations to anticipate and shape changes in the medical care environment. 

Medicine continues to be on the threshold of change. If the AMA, in conjunction with the Federation, can anticipate change and work together to find solutions, organized medicine can affect the course of this change and ensure our patients continue to receive high-quality health care. The medical and information technology advances in the last decade have been incredible and the pace of innovation is unlikely to change. If organized medicine can help physicians keep up with these improvements and learn to use information technology to its greatest potential, then the AMA will be relevant to physicians around the world.

The publication is updated every two years, and the next update will be available in fall 2008.

Download the complete 2006 Health Care Trends (PDF, 334KB), or download by chapter: 

Cover
Page i (PDF, 77KB)

Table of contents
Page ii (PDF, 18KB)

Credits
Page iii (PDF, 15KB)

Demographics of the U.S. population
Page 2 (PDF, 65KB)

Health status of the population
Page 5 (PDF, 57KB)

Health care resources
Page 9 (PDF, 64KB)

Medical education
Page 15 (PDF, 54KB)

Health care expenditures
Page 20 (PDF, 42KB)

Health care coverage and access
Page 23 (PDF, 59KB)

Third-party payers
Page 27 (PDF, 57KB)

Medical practice
Page 31 (PDF, 56KB)

Quality measures
Page 35 (PDF, 456KB)

Public health infrastructure and services
Page 39 (PDF, 53KB)

Science and technology in medicine
Page 45 (PDF, 72KB)

Information and communication technologies
Page 51 (PDF, 60KB)

Patient expectations and perceptions
Page 56 (PDF, 50KB)

References
Page 59 (PDF, 116KB)