Chronic care: a future delivery model?

If demographic predictions are right, the chronic care patient population will have a significant effect on future health care delivery systems. As baby-boomers age and become debilitated with chronic disease and conditions, and as premature babies and young trauma and chronic disease victims survive with increased disability, acute care hospital administrators will have to focus more attention on these patients. But what is this patient population like? One of the steps to understanding the chronic care market is to form a realistic profile of these patients, say executives. They are not all elderly, and they are not all near death. But they are savvy consumers who demand high-quality, patient-centered care.