Trend analysis also known as horizontal analysis because the comparison is over time periods. Trend analysis is important in forecasting because it will show the change in percent over time of services and expenses. An example of this is comparing radiology procedures would show that in the last $6$ months there has been a decrease in services by $10\%$ so the radiology manager can understand if the budget is met or not as well as understand the trend of change. The different between forecasts and projections is that forecasts is utilized to try to predict future numbers of services or expenses and projection is used to plan and utilize for decision making processes. When making assumptions forecasting utilizes past information or historical trends and projections utilizes assumptions of what may happen in the future.