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Escalating costs and patchy quality
According to the World Healthcare Outlook of the Economist Intelligence Unit 2014, total global health spending is expected to grow at over 5% in 2015.
 
In Europe rising government debts, constraints on tax revenues, and aging populations will force health providers to make difficult choices about the provision of healthcare. Rising demand, and continued cost pressures will increase pressure on traditional healthcare business models and operating processes to change.
 
Despite the expected annual productivity and efficiency savings of some 4%, UK healthcare expenditure in 2015 is estimated to be about 10.3% of GDP. In the absence of changes to the delivery model, the UK's NHS funding gap is likely to increase significantly in 2015.
 
In their struggle to manage the escalating healthcare costs, health providers will accelerate their transition from volume to value. This will mean a greater emphasis on improving outcomes while lowering costs. This will drive payers to seek out global best practices of delivering affordable quality healthcare such as Narayana Health.

Access 
Improving access to healthcare will be one of the most pressing policy issues in 2015. Shortages of health professionals represent significant challenges in healthcare access, and healthcare systems will be pressed to recruit, and retain health professionals.The US is addressing this. US employment in healthcare increased from 8.7% of the civilian population in 1998 to 10.5% in 2008, and is projected to rise to 11.9% (nearly 20 million people) by 2018.
 
The UK is not in such a good position. In 2012 the UK had a shortage of 40,00 nurses, which it hasn't resolved. This is compounded by shortages GPs. Europe has an estimated shortage of some 230,00 doctors.
 
Increasingly, developed countries recruit health professionals from developing economies. The morality of this will be further questioned in 2015 as the policy significantly erodes the number and quality of healthcare professionals in emerging countries.
 
Changing technologies
The development of healthcare technologies has been rapid, and in some cases disruptive. Technologies such as telemedicine, electronic health records, mHealth, e-prescriptions, and predictive analytics have changed the way health providers, payers and patients interact, and contributed to improved quality of care, lower costs and improved outcomes. In 2015 expect the spend on healthcare technologies to slow.  
 
Security    
Reportedly, there is a growing and lucrative black-market for personally identifiable information, and personal healthcare information. Many healthcare organizations already have low security budgets, and only about 50% employ adequate encryption technologies to secure their endpoint data. Compared with other industries, healthcare experiences significant losses of endpoint healthcare data. Security challenges for the healthcare sector will accelerate in 2015. 

Diabetes education and outcomes
Current providers of diabetes education fail to demonstrate how their offerings affect outcomes, and people are not interested in educational courses if they're not linked to outcomes. A 2012 London School of Economics study concludes that there's a lack of diabetes outcome data in the UK, and, "No one really knows the true impact of diabetes, and its associated complications."

The 2013 Annual Report of Diabetes UK (DUK) states that 50,000 people with diabetes used the Charity's blood glucose tracker app, 500,000 took its diabetes risk test, and DUK distributed 250,000 foot-guides, but the Report fails to mention what impact these important activities had on patient outcomes. 

Shift of power
Traditional providers of diabetes education have yet to appreciate that the information age has shifted the balance of power from health providers to patients.
 
Mobile devices are ubiquitous and personal. By 2018 smartphone penetration in the UK is expected to be 100%. The over 55s are projected to experience the fastest year-on-year smartphone penetration, and the difference of smartphone penetration by age is expected to disappear by 2020. Further, competition will continue to drive down prices of mobile devices, and increase their functionality. 
 
Over 70% of people living with diabetes regularly use their mobiles to search the Internet for healthcare information, and use social-media to share information about health providers, and educational courses.  This is carried out 24-7, 365 days a year.
 
Traditional providers of diabetes educational courses should be minded that 35% of all patients who use social-media say negative things about health providers, 40% of people who receive such negative information believe it, and 41% say it affects their choices. Social-media is the new frontier of reputation risk for providers of diabetes education.
 
Takeaways
Traditional providers of diabetes education must become more open to independent service providers, and enhance their digital strategies to make their education offerings smarter, faster, and better. 

Frequently misdiagnosed
The frequent misdiagnosis of ovarian cancer means that it often presents late when it has already metastasized. It's the most aggressive gynecological malady, with poor survival rates: only 40% survive beyond five years, and it can affect any woman.
 
The reason why early symptoms are difficult to detect is because inside the abdomen, the ovary has a lot of space to grow into before it starts to press onto other structures such as the uterus, bowel and bladder.
 
Early detection is key
All women should be on guard of the symptoms, which may be vague at first, and similar to other conditions, such as digestive disorders. The commonest symptoms are discomfort or pain in the lower abdomen or pelvis, and also there may be backache or a swelling felt.
 
There is a survival rate of up to 90% when ovarian cancer is caught early, compared with less than 30% if it is discovered in the later stages. 

Increasing incidence in younger women
Around 1 in 55 women will get ovarian cancer at some time in their life, and it is more common over the age of 40. Less than 1 in 20 ovary cancers occur in women younger than this. There are inherited factors involved in some cases, and research is underway to find out how best to screen women at increased risk of the disease. Since the mid-1970s, the incidence of ovarian cancer in women between 15 and 39 has increased by some 56%.
 
Takeaway
Currently, early detection, and rapid referral to a specialist gynaecological cancer unit is the key to transforming survival rates for ovarian cancer. Patients therefore have to rely on seeing a doctor, and being correctly diagnosed in time. 
 

Increasing incidence
For reasons not completely understood, the incidence of type-1 diabetes has been increasing throughout the world at about three to five per cent a year, and is most prevalent in Europe. This is troubling, because type-1 diabetes has the potential to disable or kill people early in their lives.

The search to discover why type-1 diabetes is increasing resembles the penultimate chapter of an Agatha Christie mystery, where there are many suspects, but no prime candidate. The last chapter to explain the increasing incidence of type-1 diabetes is yet to be written.  
 
Parents unaware of symptoms
A 2012 UK report suggests that parents are unaware of the warning signs of type-1 diabetes: thirstiness, tiredness, weight loss and frequently passing urine. As a consequence 25% of children with the condition are diagnosed once they are already seriously ill with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA). DKA occurs because a severe lack of insulin upsets the body's normal chemical balance, and leads to the production of poisonous chemicals called ketones. This build-up can be life threatening, and needs immediate specialist treatment in hospital.

The challenge of cell production
Making industrial quantities of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas has been a Holy Grail of diabetes research. All previous attempts have failed to achieve scalable quantities of the mature beta cells that could be of practical benefit to people living with diabetes.

Just over 20 years ago when Professor Melton's son Sam was diagnosed with type-1 diabetes Melton promised that he would find a cure. He was further inspired when his daughter at 14 was also diagnosed with type-1 diabetes.

According to Melton, it should be possible to produce 'scalable' quantities of beta pancreatic cells from stem cells in industrial-sized bioreactors, and then transplant them into a patient to protect them from immune attack. This would result in an effective cure.

"The biggest hurdle has been to get glucose-sensing, insulin-secreting beta cells, and that's what our group has done," says Melton.

In addition to offering a new form of treatment, and possibly a 'cure' for type-1 diabetes, Melton believes his discovery could also offer hope for the 10% of people living with type-2 diabetes who have to rely on regular insulin injections.

Takeaway
If Professor Melton is successful, not only will his discovery honour a promise to his children, but also it'll be a medical game-changer on a par with antibiotics and bacterial infections.