Planning in Healthcare Services

Question: Discuss about thePlanning in Healthcare Services. Answer: Introduction Health Services in Australia operates in two models. The sector has service providers from the public and private sectors alike. The private sector health service providers may operate for profit basis or non-profit basis. The non-profit organisations generally operate as NGOs supporting the cause of Public Health in Australia. The healthcare industry is covered by group health insurance system that takes care of the expenses of the individuals. The health system of Australia focuses on quality, facilities and service. The cost of these facilities may invariably very high. Covering this cost might be out of the pocket of the individuals. Hence, the requirement of having the insurance policies in proper place (Health, 2016). Healthcare planning needs to be strategic planning and not ordinal planning. The reason for this emanates from the fact that the vector of a healthcare has to be specific to the needs of the patients and cannot be anything other. Since medical science is highly delivery oriented and time bound the need for maintaining timelines is extremely important. The slack in timelines may cost someone the life. Discussion Planning Planning is understood to be a roadmap of the entire program with emphasis on the destination, the means of reaching the same, and the timelines of covering the distance. The entire planning activity includes a monitoring process of the progress and the cost benefit of the entire process. The planning process is always futuristic in nature. This involves specifying the goals and determining the course of action for the same. Planning specific to the healthcare industry is oriented towards improving the general health standards of the entire population, just as we plan to do economic development in a sustainable manner. Sustainable development focuses on maintaining the existing social and ecological balance whilst ensuring all round growth of the economy. It ensures egalitarian concepts of the development and equality of access to healthcare for all. The infrastructure of the healthcare services should ensure that it is geared up to meet the volume of patients that is expected by the healthcare establishment (Qld, 2016). The two major approaches to the healthcare planning are Population and Institutional methodologies. The characteristics of these two methodologies are enumerated below. Population Methodology This approach aims to deal with the individual healthcare seekers. In short, it refers to the individual patients. A particular patient who approaches the hospital or clinic for treatment is required to be dealt in a particular way. It focuses on the aspects of the individual who need to be addressed for the problems. This approach can be dealt with an individual or a group of individuals. The group of individuals can be a community or a region that is seeking improvement in healthcare facilities (Jurgen Schmidt, 2009). Institutional Methodology This approach deals with the establishments that are providing the healthcare services. The up gradation and maintenance of the systems and facilities are covered under this approach. Institutions providing the facilities need to meet the expectation and requirement of the seekers of the services (Jurgen Schmidt, 2009). Case Analysis The analysis of the case merits itself on these broad principles. Changing Demographics of the Population The population is segregated into variety of factors. These include age, gender, grouping, cultural and ethnicity of the population and he socio-economic status of the persons being addressed. This factor also addresses the risks involved in the population like for a high age group population, the risk of falling sick is more than that of a population which is of a lower age group. The social habits like smoking and drinking gives rise to peculiar disorders and diseases that are different from a population that does not induce much into these habits. Food habits are another consideration. Populations that have traditionally high intake of calories and cholesterol are subject to different types of healthcare challenges than population that is predominantly vegetarian. (Harpera, Shahania, Gallagherb, Bowiec, 2005) The healthcare services need to be designed keeping these factors in mind. A faulty design may give rise to an excellent system, per se, but not geared up to meet the challenges of the population it is destined to address. Use of Technology The medical science is highly technology oriented. New developments happen every day in the field of medical sciences. Research and development is an integral part of the healthcare industry in finding newer solutions to the emerging trends of viruses and bacteria that emerge everyday due to change of strain. The changing environmental conditions are resulting in genetic mutation of the viruses that are causing the diseases. Also changes in the lifestyle and living mechanisms of the modern times cause newer types of medical disorders. They study the changes which require a continuous monitoring of the growth and development of the agents. The aim of the research is into finding the technological solutions to the problems. Technology plays an important part in the medical field. Many apparatuses are used for investigation of the health problems. Apparatuses have become more and more complex due to increasing complexity of the diseases and the nature of investigations that are being conducted. The stress today is more on non-invasive methods of investigation. For example, development of faster x-ray machines that capture digital image in minutes against old film based machine taking hours to develop. The entire speed of the treatment process improves in that case. Machinery improvements require doctors to investigate deeper and wider. Thus the development of technology has to be in sync with the treatment and investigation methodologies of the modern medical science (Harris, 2013). Modern Clinical Evidences Medical science of today focuses on many evidences that were not looked upon in earlier times. Hence the impacts of the advances of evidence and technology have resulted in the changes in the knowledge content of the medical science. There were medicines considered life saving in earlier times. Today many such medical compositions have been discarded due to other factors like them being carcinogenic or others. Medical facilities need to be organised and delivered in the same manner. The delivery models depend on the nature of treatment technology and style that the doctors choose to undertake (Green, Kreuter, Deeds, Partridge, Bartlett, 1980). Projecting the Future Since medical practitioners have role to understand the nature and criticality of disorders, it involves understanding the future of the medical sciences and diseases. The changes that require to be predicted involves understanding a part of social sciences whereby changes in tastes and preferences of the population need to be understood. Projected changes in social structures and human development need to be understood by the medical practitioners. a knowledge worker may take hypertension more casually than an industrial worker. If the future holds more space for knowledge workers, the response of the medical practitioners to the findings will have to be altered (Flower, 1996). Resource Allocation The net area of medical professionals for resource allocation needs to be looked into with the passage of time. The prioritisation of the allocation will depend on the changing face of medical science. With newer strains of agents developing and older strains developing resistance to chemicals, the priorities of the medical professionals require a change. The viewpoint of doctors and paramedics towards prioritising the resources need to be altered. Health service planning requires incorporating the change of priorities. The planning priorities for health needs and services are to be identified for allocation. (Markwell, 2009) Theories of Healthcare Planning There are two broad types of planning approaches undertaken in the Healthcare industry. These are Strategic Planning and Operational Planning. The considerations of both are very similar and overlap with each other. However, there are some points of difference as is enumerated in the short discussion below. Strategic Planning This refers to the planning activities that are done by the upper echelons of the management and are more decision oriented in nature. These are generally the types of planning done by the Government, the Medical Councils, and the WHO, to just name a few. The policy level planning actually creates the roadmap for the healthcare system of the entire nation. The local bodies are also involved in strategic planning for the areas and population pertaining to their domain. Such planning aspects include the decisions on number of hospitals per person, establishment of medical colleges, foreign aid in technology development, budgetary plan outlay, amongst others (Businessdictionary, 2016). Operational Planning This is done at the grassroots level where the actual healthcare is being administered. Such decisions are taken at micro level pertaining to a particular hospital or even a particular patient. What treatment is to be meted out, what line of diagnosis is to be followed, whether insurance claim would be admissible for the case or not, and other decisional things of this nature. These are translating the Strategic Planning into actions through the actual plan implementation. Allocation of human and material resources is a major decision factor in Operational Planning (Leoisaac, 2016). The approaches that are often taken with the theory of healthcare planning that address various aspects of the public life. It integrates itself to deal with various needs of the target population. The target is very important to be identified correctly as the solutions will vary according to the target, as the needs are different. Apart from the needs, the ability to assimilate the solutions and administer the medicines may also vary. The variations are according to demographics that include gender, age, ethnicity, medical conditions, pre existing aliments, etc. of the patients (Davis Sisson, 2009). These pointers hold good for the field of study of healthcare planning, be it through Population method or Institutional method. The theory of healthcare planning that governs our establishments is based on the theory of public welfare. This ensures that all citizens are treated at par irrespective of gender, orientation, ethnicity, livelihood, caste, creed, race and skin colour. The citizens of the country are entitled to receive the healthcare facilities instituted by the government and take advantage of the system of insurance that is instituted for the purpose. The Non-profit and the government healthcare centres are an integral part of the system. (Lgausa, 2016). Use of Resources Both the Population and Institutional Methods take cognizance of the optimal use of resources pertaining to the healthcare industry. The resources can be physical resources as in terms of hospital buildings, apparatus, facilities like operation theatres, services like ambulance, etc. The other forms of facilities that govern the industry are the facilities in terms of knowledge. This includes basic medical and para-medical knowledge and developmental knowledge (Europa, 2016). The developmental knowledge is closely linked to the Research and Development that is a part and parcel of the industry. The research is done by independent government and non-government bodies and pharmaceutical companies. The aim of the researches done by these two concerns varies a little. The agency based research work is generally with the aim of studying the trends in the medical world. It incorporates the changes in the genetic mutation of disease causing agents, the natural growth of newer strains of agents and development of resistance of the agents to existing methods of treatment. The pharmaceutical researches mainly target development of antidotes to the changes in the nature and strain of the agents. They are keener on inventing solutions to annihilate the developed agents so that their products can be prescribed by the medical practitioners and used by the patients. This has a business and profit motive behind it and hence the funding received is huge. However, both are of equal importance, as one is identification of the cause and the other is the identification of result. Communication The medical field is very sensitive to the nature of communication done by the practitioners in the trade. Doctors know certain uncomfortable facts about a patient. However, it may not be pertinent to explicitly spell that out to the patient or the family at a premature juncture due to psychological reasons. Again abstaining from stating the truth may lead to non-disclosure of facts and can invite legal and human rights issues. The line is very thin. Most hospitals today follow a practice of a spokes-team that communicates to the patients and relatives. The queries raised by the spokes-team are routed back to the practitioners and answers sought. A growing sense of inconvenience is reported in many cases due to the time lost in delay of communication. However, it safeguards the establishments from maligning of image or facing resentment from the kin of the patients, especially in cases of death, due to communication made directly by the doctors. The doctor may not have the clarity of understanding of the audience being addressed and the content of the statements could have been too candid or too ambiguous for the recipients (Amwa, 2015). The fragile aspect of communication is an important aspect of the medical science. Unfortunately, no medical course teaches this to the practitioners, who learn it by observation and experience. Conclusion In the afore-discussed article, we have dealt with the two strategic approaches of healthcare planning that rule the industry. The approaches need to be strategic and not organic so that it has a clear direction and thrust to meet the rational challenges posted by the ever changing scenario of medical sciences. The changes that are taking place have also been noted to include changes due to changing strains of agents causing the diseases and also the changes in the lifestyle of the entire global population. The two major approaches of Population and Institutional are affected by these aspects. The population methodology concerns the changes pertaining to the recipient of the treatment, either singly or as a community. The institutional methodology covers aspects dealing with establishments that transaction business of healthcare. The industry is a major global employer of people of much specialised skills and needs to be studied in detail for their technical and human competencies. References: Amwa. (2015). About Medical Communications. Retrieved 10 18, 2016, from American Medical Writers Association: https://www.amwa.org/about_med_communications Businessdictionary. (2016). Strategic Planning. 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