State of health: Colorado tackles health-care access, other issues.
Author | Dano, Mike |
FROM THE AFFORDABLE Care Act to the Apple Watch, national health-care trends continue to play out in Colorado, changing the mechanics of patients' relationships with their doctors, their insurance providers and their bodies. Regionally, Colorado endeavors to stay at the forefront of health-care opportunities, ranging from high-tech telemedicine to mobile dentistry.
"Our goal is for Colorado to become the healthiest state in the nation, " stated a report ordered by Gov. John Hickenlooper two years ago. The state's goal remains intact today, but 2015 stands as a year of major transitions and new innovations in the health-care space across Denver and the rest of Colorado.
To be clear, there remain plenty of challenges in the health-care space in Colorado and nationwide. In his report, Hickenlooper noted that health spending in the U.S. already consumes 18 percent of the country's gross domestic product; yet the overall quality of Americans' care is roughly half that of other industrialized nations. In Colorado specifically, the governor said the state ranks 10th among U.S. states in "healthy living," but that ranking falls to 28th in terms of illness prevention and treatment--and to 40th in health-care access.
But those figures may be changing, based on the efforts of a wide range of health professionals, philanthropists and entrepreneurs across the state. Below are three trends emerging this year in Colorado's health-care industry--trends that could eventually have significant ramifications for our state and the nation.
HEALTH CARE, UNTETHERED
"The growth we experienced is pretty exceptional," says Tatyana Akhmetova, head of Denver's 24/7 Home Health Care Ltd. The 2-year-old company provides in-home nursing, therapy, medical and social worker services, among other offerings. As Akhmetova explains, the company provides everything from bathing services for patients to monitoring medications.
When she launched her company, Akhmetova says she worried how 24/7 Home Health Care might find patients. But those fears proved groundless: The company added 100 patients in its first year of operation, and around 200 patients last year. Rather than finding patients, Akhmetova says her real challenge is finding enough nurses to meet demand--the company now counts around 60 employees.
"A lot of people want to go home" rather than stay in a hospital, Akhmetova explains. Moreover, "it's very expensive" to stay in a hospital. "The shorter the stay in the...
To continue reading
Request your trialCOPYRIGHT GALE, Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.