I recently returned from the World Health Summit in Berlin, a large substantive meeting dealing with many aspects of health and well-being.   On one of the meeting’s many panels, I was asked to address what the health care sector needs in order to thrive.  In thinking somewhat about this topic, I decided to focus on the serious challenges that health care, from a global perspective, faces, and chose to comment on five of them.

1. Increasing Dualism.  By this I refer to the growing health disparities that exist within and among countries, as well as the significant gap between what we know scientifically and what we practice clinically.

2. Overextension of the health system, such as in needed responses to pandemics, wars, natural or man-made disasters, emerging diseases, behavioral and planetary changes, and so forth.

3. Loss of Focus on the Patient and the Community.  Here the concern relates to growing economics of health care and the delicate balance between seeking profit and good health.

4. Shortage and Maldistribution of Healthcare Workers.  Readers of this Blog should not be surprised by this one.  These shortages range from a general lack of practitioners to specific kinds of medical specialties, and include ethical issues of the international migration of health workers.

5. Support of Research.  Research is a critical engine of progress for health care delivery.  Continuing the flow of these dollars and directing them to areas with the highest yield remain substantial challenges.

There has never been a more relevant opportunity for those institutions educating the next generation of health professionals, conducting biomedical and clinical research, and caring for patients to work together collaboratively.  In response, AAHC International has been created to foster the concept of an international academic health center community driven by the ideal of improving the public good.