Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-20-2026

Identifier

DOI: 10.2196/96758; PMCID: PMC13683991

Abstract

Pediatric health care systems face increasing uncertainty driven by rapid technological change, workforce shifts and shortages, environmental threats, and evolving family and community needs. Pediatrics requires future-focused considerations that go beyond adult systems, including family-centered care, developmental trajectories, and long-term societal impacts on child well-being. While the future cannot be predicted, futures medicine methods offer structured approaches to anticipate change and support proactive, values-driven planning. This Viewpoint describes the application of pediatric futures methods within an academic, independent nonprofit pediatric health system and proposes a practical framework that connects future readiness to strategic decision-making and daily care delivery. Futures medicine methods are not new in pediatric health care but may not be visible from the front line of care delivery, which provides an opportunity for clinical, operational, administrative, and enterprise leaders to implement these methods in their workflows. This paper introduces the discover to deliver pediatric futures framework, a continuum that links long-range futures discovery to near-term strategic planning, operational design, implementation, and outcome demonstration, emphasizing future methods and activities for applicable use.

Journal Title

Journal of medical Internet research [electronic resource]

Volume

28

First Page

96758

Last Page

96758

MeSH Keywords

Pediatrics; Humans; Delivery of Health Care; Forecasting; Child

PubMed ID

42902891

Keywords

child; forecasting; future; pediatrics; strategic planning

Comments

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (ISSN 1438-8871), is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

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