Gartner's greatest value to clients lies in its ability to identify and analyze the most pressing and impactful key business and IT issues that our clients face. We then offer actionable advice to help clients plan and address those challenges. In our previous Spotlight, we provided the first half of this equation with a new set of Key Issues that will frame our research for 2003. Among the areas we focused on were the major drivers and challenges faced by providers, payer organizations and other healthcare stakeholders, from the perspectives of management, technology, vendors and applications. We now turn to the second half of that equation with our healthcare predictions for 2003. In this Spotlight, we start by providing a number of longer-term predictions (looking out five to 10 or more years) about the direction that healthcare is heading.  Read more		Kenneth Kleinberg Editor in Chief Healthcare

			Healthcare Predictions for 2003: Slow Evolution 12 December 2002 Kenneth Kleinberg  Janice Young  Out-of-control costs, regulatory pressures, medical error issues, increased consumerism and payer automation challenges are critical for healthcare organizations to understand and react to in 2003.

	Healthcare Predictions for Executives and Strategists 9 December 2002 Jim Klein  Janice Young  Matthew Duncan  James Gabler  Business and IS executives as well as business and IS managers must respond to HIPAA compliance, external sourcing, IT spending and risk analysis issues in 2003.		Predictions for Underlying Technologies in Healthcare 12 December 2002 Kenneth Kleinberg  Jim Klein  Barry Hieb, M.D.  Wes Rishel  There are exciting advances for healthcare in mobile devices, wireless, security, speech recognition, natural language processing and HIPAA compliance. Some are ready to be pursued and some still need to mature.
	Healthcare Predictions for Payer Organizations for 2003 11 December 2002 Cynthia Burghard  Janice Young  In 2003, technology advances will set the stage for new healthcare payer business models for the next five years. The advances and business models will position payers to be real-time, consumer-focused enterprises.		Healthcare Provider Predictions: IT Advances for 2003 11 December 2002 Thomas Handler, M.D.  Michael Davis  Barry Hieb, M.D.  In 2003, provider organizations must pay attention to tighter integration of clinical and financial systems. Computer-based patient record systems to reduce medical errors and improved supply chain management are also top priorities.