The Evolving Disease Patterns and New Tracers to Assess the 21st Century Health Care

It goes without saying that we are in a new era of diseases. The target of disease for healthcare service has now shifted from infectious diseases to chronic degenerative diseases, and the target age group has shifted from children to the elderly. The tools used to assess the quality of health care services now need to be revised and tailored to the new target groups and their health issues. The tracer, one of these tools, is reviewed and potential new tracers are proposed in this manuscript. All tools used to assess both healthcare services and population health status should receive a similar updated intervention.