Healthcare 2020: the new rules of society

Health Management Technology invites its readers to look ahead 20 years at IT and healthcare issues with Russell C. Coile Jr. and Brett Trusko of Superior Consultant Company, Inc. This series, titled Healthcare 2020: Bringing the Future into Focus, represents two futurists' views of the new millennium. Over the next several months, HMT will review predictions of the changes in healthcare in the first part of the 21st century. This second article, The New Rules of Society, discusses the drivers for changes in social norms, how various generations will handle the challenges of the next century, and how technology may affect those challenges and changes. Each of the ensuing articles will examine how healthcare will be affected, both directly and indirectly, by changes in society, politics, technology, local economics, and the ever-more-important global economy.