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New ideas emerge when we look beyond our own limited perspective and incorporate diverse viewpoints into the soup of creative thinking. Working together, we will find solutions. Over time, our own understanding can grow into wisdom. 

One of the most precious assets of the 21st Century is the World Wide Web. Anyone with access to the Internet can connect with people, organizations, and ideas across the globe. Put to its highest use, the ‘net’ can speed information sharing and knowledge transfer cost-effectively, create sustainable learning communities, and support genuine collaboration.   

CG INSIGHTS exists to give our clients, colleagues and friends a place where they can learn more about our ideas and our work in countries on three continents. It’s also the place to connect with insights and resources from other experts and global citizens who inform our work and worldview. This is our commitment to a global community.

On a regular basis, we will offer our insights and connect you to links we find insightful. We hope you will check back regularly. You can also go to Contact and sign up for our ‘Periodic CG INSIGHTS Announcement.’

The topic for our first volume is healthcare delivery, and is near and dear to our own hearts and deep expertise. One way or another, it also touches everyone on the planet. For that reason, our next several issues of CG Insights will be devoted to this topic. Today, we offer this global overview and discuss inter-relationships that must be factored into any proposed solution. 

The Global Challenge of Healthcare Delivery

Except for a few Scandinavian countries with small, homogeneous populations, no country has figured out how to deliver quality healthcare cost-effectively and equitably to its people. Among developed and developing countries, however, the underlying issues, though inter-related, are quite different. Understandably, our work and approach is adapted to the unique realities on the ground. Here, we offer our perspective on key issues and challenges facing leaders working to create workable healthcare policy and for courageous men and women who actually deliver essential healthcare. We supplement our own viewpoint with links to useful resources where readers can learn more about specific topics of personal interest. 

Challenges for Developed Countries

Most ‘1st World’ countries with large economies and well-developed healthcare infrastructures remain plagued with inequitable access to healthcare services. The reasons are both economic and related to health service design and delivery. Regardless of how healthcare services are financed, we’ve identified three common, inter-related phenomena that exist across continents and are forcing leaders everywhere to grapple with fundamental healthcare system reform. How a country’s leaders and policymakers decide to address them will continue to create some of the most challenging and politically volatile policy questions of the 21st Century. How leaders of healthcare organizations adapt to these forces will determine their companies short-term effectiveness as well as the quality of healthcare available to populations across, the globe.

Phenomenon #1: An Aging Population. All developed countries have aging populations, whose numbers will only increase in the decades ahead. A high proportion of the elderly suffer from chronic conditions and the high-cost ‘diseases of aging.’ This demographic profile is a significant contributor to the second phenomenon.

Phenomenon #2: Upward-spiraling Costs of Healthcare Delivery. In spite of rigorous efforts to contain costs, current (and future) expenditures are increasing at a faster rate than are the underlying economies that must support the expanding demand for healthcare.

Phenomenon #3: Global Shortage of an Adequately Trained Healthcare Workforce. The third equally significant, yet under-appreciated, phenomenon is the ever-increasing global shortage of adequately trained and qualified healthcare personnel. This manpower shortage is pervasive and impacts affordability and accessibility of healthcare throughout the world.

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US News and World Report Cover Story: "Medical Tourism" (www.usnews.com)

CG Insights Archive

CG Insights Volume 1