Future Challenges in Healthcare Management

ANALYSIS OF THE FUTURE CHALLENGES FOR HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT           

            Mintzberg observes that management is acquired by acting, practicing the confrontations and prospects of leadership.¹ However, the best and most accomplished are intuitive performers who insightfully know their demeanors, approaches and deeds. In addition, their influence on others, the organization, the ability to look into, review deeply their own performance setting it in a broader context that is enclosed by relevant theories, models and concepts.[1] According to Peter Drucker, health care institutions are among the hardest institutions to supervise. Supervisors are required to expect the results of modern technologies by choosing those that give better returns than costs. They must scrutinize and agree on tricky financial undertakings that give required financial resources without jeopardizing long-term monetary liability. Supervisors are required to resolve internal differences between professionals, thereby regulate rival needs of society, stakeholders, taxpayers, patients and staff.[2]

            Smith and Walshe observe that very developed country health care system will be faced with four unavoidable challenges. Namely:

Ø  Population change

Ø  The rate of technological development

Ø  Shifting user and customer needs; and

Ø  Increasing prices under international fiscal depression.

The population change means as people tend to live longer, the population of aged people increases at a fast rate. The elderly comprise usage of health care institutions much more because of their degenerating body functions. As people live longer the cost to keep them alive and the likelihood to develop complicated and persistent illnesses increases.[3] World Health Organization postulates this as a result of health hazards such as cigarette use, unfitness and proper eating habits.[4]

      The rate of technological development relates to population change in that it mirrors the upward ability to contain persistent illnesses therefore extends life. By increasing technological advancements in pharmaceuticals, surgery, diagnostics and service delivery through cell phones new ways of managing disease and cure are discovered each day. Largely, this means treatment methods that are not only effective, but unfortunately quite expensive to administer than the existing ones.

      Nowadays people need more from health providers in terms of service delivery than their parents needed. They are not satisfied with the traditional reception of health service prescribed and distributed by the health providers. They want to know exactly what is ailing them, ways to prevent relapse and so on. Like any other areas of specialization such as banking, housing, education, they expect to be consulted and up to date since they are the end users. This represents a population that has more information, is coherent and likely to be informed and ask for new and exorbitant treatments.

      The increasing cost of health care is the result of the three challenges highlighted earlier. Each of the challenges exerts pressure for more funds. Even under acute international fiscal depression, governments have little or no alternative but to increase their spending on health facilities which never seems to be enough. This normally forces governments to reduce spending on other equally important economic sectors such as education. Over the years innovation of better and cheaper computers, cars and banking have been witnessed. On the other hand, health care costs are quite high and continues to rise along with the demand for it.

      A report by Andrea Chipman for the Economic Intelligence Unit observes Africa as home to the world’s poorest populations and at the same time grappling with numerous health crises. The report continues to assert that terminal ailments are now being matched by preventable communicable and parasitic diseases. It identifies the mode of funding as inadequate in the health care delivery system. Government expenditure continues to be insufficient while international funding looks uncertain in the current economic environment. Lack of adequate public health care means the poorest Africans have little or no access to care. Moreover, they sometimes lack the basic requirements of health such as clean water, sanitation and balanced diet. This provides a major challenge in managing healthcare in the continent[5]  

      Global health care systems are at a verge of change. The transformations that countries carry out in the next few years will be important to reducing the mortality rates especially in developing economies. As more and more people become informed health care measures especially with the increased use of the internet, governments must be at the fore-front to provide sufficient, quality and timely health care solutions. Medical students should be taught managerial skills to assist in the management of health delivery institutions.

Bibliography

Chipman Andrea. The future of healthcare in Africa .Economist Intelligence Unit. The Economist http://www.economistinsights.com/sites/default/files/downloads/EIU-Janssen_HealthcareAfrica_Report_Web.pdf [accessed June, 17 2014]

 Baker R.G. PH. D (n.d) Healthcare Managers in the Complex World of Healthcare, 24 www.researchgate.net/Healthcare_Managers/9c96052aca [accessed on June, 17 2014]

Mintzberg, H. Managers Not MBAs. London: Prentice Hall, 2004

Peck, E. Organizational Development in Healthcare: Approaches, Innovations, Achievements. Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press, 2004

Smith Judith and Walshe Kieran. Introduction: The current and future challenges of healthcare management. https://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/openup/chapters/9780335243815.pdf [accessed June, 17 2014]    

World Health Organization. Preventing Chronic Diseases: A vital investment, Geneva. WHO, 2005

---

[1] Peck, E. Organizational Development in Healthcare: Approaches, Innovations, Achievements.(Oxford: Radcliffe Medical Press,2004)

[2] G. Ross Baker. PH. D (n.d) Healthcare Managers in the Complex World of Healthcare, 24 www.researchgate.net/Healthcare_Managers/9c96052aca [accessed on June 17, 2014]

[3] Judith Smith and Kieran Walshe. Introduction: The current and future challenges of healthcare management. https://www.mcgraw-hill.co.uk/openup/chapters/9780335243815.pdf [ accessed June 17, 2014]

[4] World Health Organization. Preventing Chronic Diseases: A vital investment. (Geneva. WHO, 2005)

[5] Andrea Chipman. The future of healthcare in Africa .Economist Intelligence Unit. The Economist http://www.economistinsights.com/sites/default/files/downloads/EIU-Janssen_HealthcareAfrica_Report_Web.pdf [ accessed June 17, 2014]

Scenario Thinking

An Article on Scenario Thinking

Scenario thinking also known as scenario planning is described in WIKIPEDIA (2013) as “a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. It is in large part an adaptation and generalization of classic methods used by military intelligence.” (WIKIPEDIA 2013). Scenario thinking is based on a model that is drawn like a cross with the X-axis representing one variable and the Y-axis representing another variable. According to WIKIPEDIA, introduction of scenario planning is attributed to Herman Kahn through his work for the US Military in the 1950s at the RAND Corporation where he developed a technique of describing the future in stories as if written by people in the future.”

Scenario thinking or planning can further be described as the experimenting to find out how something or someone change or behave when certain variables are shifted. Scearce,D. Fulton, K. and the Global Business Network community (2004) notes that “ scenario thinking is a tool for motivating people to challenge the status quo, or get better at doing so, by asking “What if?” Asking “What if?” in a disciplined way allows you to rehearse the possibilities of tomorrow, and the to take the action today empowered by those provocations and insights” (Scearce, D. Fulton, K. and the Global Business Network community, 2004, p.3)

Benjamin Franklin once remarked thus, “Only three things are certain in life, birth, death and taxes.” To add to that, I say change. Bruce Sterling a science fiction writer argues, “Futurism is the art of reperception. It means recognizing that life will change, must change, and has changed, and it suggests how and why. It shows that old perception have lost their validity while new ones are possible.”

Scenario thinking at a glance may seem as a complicated economic concept that is the reserve of economists. An example will help de-mystify this concept. Imagine you want to measure the economic development of your country.

You grab a piece of paper and draw two lines. One vertical running on the left hand side of the paper from top to bottom. Draw another horizontal line from the base of the first line running from left to right. Now you have a sample of graph paper with x-axis and y-axis.

Now name the y-axis at the base, “Bad Governance and at the top, “Good Governance.” Likewise, name the x-axis at the base, “Weak Economy” and at the far end, “Vibrant Economy.” Note that the x-axis will represent economic development.

Next, draw two diagonal lines one starting at the base of the intersection between the two lines running from left to right. The other diagonal line starting from the top of the y-axis running diagonally from left to right. The result is a diagram similar to that of a supply and demand curves as used in economics.

Now assume the supply curve to represent the effect of good governance brought about by for instance democracy, peace, and order etcetera. You will notice that as you move further and further away from the base of the curve the resultant effect is a vibrant economy or economic development. The reverse being if there is bad governance the result is a weak economy or stalled economic development.

Let the demand curve represent enemies of development for instance war, anarchy, corruption. In addition what you notice is that as we move further from the top of the curve  towards the far end down along the curve, represents better economic development and vice versa. The intersection of these two curves will represent the equilibrium; the point at each economic development is at any particular time.

It follows that scenario thinking is a concept that can be used on any kind of situation in our lives so long as we have shifting variables. It is important to note that various assumptions are made while using this model.

REFERENCE

Global Business Network. Available from: http://www.monitorinstitute.com/downloads/what-we-think/what-if/What_If.pdf [Accessed: 12/04/2013]

SCEARCE, D. FULTON, K. AND THE GLOBAL BUSINESS NETWORK COMMUNITY (2004) What if? The art of scenario thinking for non-profits [Online] Available from: http://www.monitorinstitute.com/downloads/what-we-think/what-if/What_If.pdf. [Accessed 12/4/2013]

WIKIPEDIA (2013) [Online] Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scenario_planning [Accessed: 12th April 2013]

Psychology In Practice

Gestalt Therapy in Practice

Edwin Nevis describes gestalt therapy as "a conceptual and methodological base from which helping professionals can craft their practice." In the same content, Joel Latner stated that Gestalt therapy is built upon two central ideas: that the most helpful focus of psychotherapy is the experiential present moment, and that everyone is caught in webs of relationships; thus, it is only possible to know ourselves against the background of our relationship to the other. Latner, J. (2000) The theory of Gestalt Therapy, in Gestalt therapy:Perspectives and Applications, Edwin Nevis (ed.) Cambridge. MA: Gestalt Press

 

Gestalt therapy, although looked upon rather suspiciously by many people, grows ever more popular and widespread over time, and begins to be well known to people who are generally very far from the problems of psychology. Here is the exemplary account of one of cases when it helped a person to develop her inner potentials and make a decision that changed her life.
A woman in question, for the purposes of convenience let’s call her Jane, moved to the new place of residence in another town and only managed to get a job of boiler-house employee, because there were not much job opportunities for outsiders. After a while, she entered a course of Gestalt therapy, which was formed along the following pattern. All the participants of this group therapy in turn communicated with the psychologist who directed the course, and were told to form images of two living beings: the one that they liked and the one they disliked. Jane liked “the fox” (for being cunning, brave and active) and disliked “the hen” (for being passive, silly and inert).
The idea of the therapy is that the liked image is what the person wants to become, while the disliked one – what she is. Over the course of communication with the psychologist, the patient and the whole group come to a decision how close the patient is to his or her desired image. In two subsequent sessions the patient imagines herself to be what she likes and what she dislikes in turn; in the course of this study, the patient together with the psychologist decide what keeps the patient from becoming what she wants to be, what makes her resemble the disliked image, what hampers her when she imagines herself to be what she likes.
The connection between the two images led the group to decide that the thing that kept Jane in the image of a hen was her job, and that her real aspiration in life was to start a center for children’s development. Jenny followed that idea and started such an establishment with surprising (for a former boiler-house employee and a resident of a town with population less than 10,000 people) success. Thus, we can see how this therapy is able, by means of a series of seemingly senseless procedures, to define the underlying motives of a human being and direct him or her accordingly.

I Fear This Might Be Overlooked

LEST YOU FORGET

Many are the times we are tempted to disregard the little things that happen in our lives. We are unaware and take for granted the things we do automatically.

Consider this: you are not aware of how important your left shoe is until you cannot trace where you kept it the last time you wore it. You are probably unaware of the importance of your right hand until you lose it. What about that friend that you have always scorned, ridiculed, ignored or maybe gossiped about? What about him? You may not know his importance until you lose him. What about your talents, your God-given gifts or abilities? You may never know about them unless you explore them.

It is my firm conviction that every human being has a passion for something, has some talent, or is gifted in something. Our levels of exploring the gifts bestowed upon us are what set the world apart from mediocre people. Statistics show that we mostly only utilize 5% of our brainpower in our lifetimes and the other 95% goes down the drain. I beg to ask then, why have the 95% for it to be wasted? We either do not know or are unaware of our potential or are simply in the wrong kind of profession. It is true that there are some multi-faceted people among us, meaning one can be a very talented brain surgeon for instance and still be a very good writer. I am reminded of one Dr. Yusuf Dawood. He juggles between an extremely busy medical schedule and still has time of his favorite pastime, writing. His passion for writing knows no limits. He is a regular columnist for The Sunday Nation a local daily and writes a column called “Surgeons Diary” every Sunday. Why are you not using your full potential? Why let 95% of your abilities just go down the drain? Remember the simple rule is, for whatever you do not you lose it automatically. It is that simple. You fail to use anything that is dealt you; you lose it. That is the rule.

Hence, each day we should strive to discover our own abilities. We should endeavor to explore all possibilities of survival because as someone rightfully put it, “it is a jungle out there.” Our world is full of heroism, selfishness malice and jealousy that we must carefully wade through in our everyday living. We must strive to find our place in this vast room we call life and draw our cards cautiously lest we forget our purpose and sense of direction in our quest for achievement.Live a full life.

Let us in our own personal way seek to be an equal among equals.

By Chris K. Kihara

THE AGONY OF DECISION

THE AGONY OF DECISION It’s often said that a decision has to marinate before we can make it. But is that really true? We can never have all the facts and information to make a decision because if we did, it wouldn’t be a decision but a foregone conclusion. Each one of us is caught up in a state of indecision at one point in our lives. Being caught between a rock and a hard place. That’s very normal. But the problem comes when we cannot quite arrive at a decision because we claim we don’t have enough information- called the agony of decision-making. Sometimes we cry out with the indiscriminate plea-do something-anything-just do something. It is quite okay to make decisions for some of them to be wrong. But it’s quite detrimental, at least to you to just sit around and do nothing. Sometimes we have already made the decision in our minds but are not sure why we made those choices. It’s held that there is nothing like indecision. You either decide or decide NOT to decide. I agree with that school of thought. The only reason we seem undecided is because we are seeking to know we made that choice. This is more often than not a futile exercise. I believe in our bid to be at peace with ourselves we should first seek to listen to our innerself. That inner voice that speaks to us. If the choices we make in our daily life, about friends, about partners, about careers, about thought patterns satisfy our spiritual needs and are not necessarily harmful to society, then for goodness sake lets make them. There’s only one basic human right, the right to do as we please so long as it does not harm anyone. With it carries the only basic responsibility, the responsibility of being ready to accept the consequences of our actions. Lets us endeavor to be happy. Lets is seek friends, careers, and partners who make us achieve inner bliss. Let us understand that there will never be anything that is universally acceptable by all as good for us. Let us be borrow a leaf from the old adage; ‘one man’s meat is patently another’s poison. But above all let’s be guided by the golden rule; Never do unto others that which you wouldn’t like to be done to you. Then and only can we be at peace with ourselves BY CHRIS K. KIHARA

The Standard | Online Edition :: Life has given me a second chance

The Standard | Online Edition :: Life has given me a second chance

Tafakari haya

There is nothing as indelible as the memory of failure