Health Care Nation, a 2026 update

Greetings from late September. I’m writing this from several different airplanes and airports, traveling back from the University of Alaska’s second AI Symposium. Aircraft wifi has been uneven, dropping in and out, and once tried to double charge me. Another time United actually apologized for not having Starlink yet. Today’s post takes one of my future of higher education scenarios, Health Care Nation, and adds some more to it. If you haven’t seen it before the idea is that allied health – the full range of health care from emergency services to surgery, psychotherapy, and hospital administration – keeps growing on the American landscape. Over time allied health employs more people, uses more technology, constitutes a large part of the national economy, and achieves a higher cultural prominence. (You can find more details in my previous writing: in 2014 (EDUCUASE Review; blog post), 2017 (blog post; another one), 2018 (blog post; another one), 2020 (in Academia Next), 2024 (video;…