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Australian public hospitals have faced many challenges during the last five years. Therefore, it is essential to mention the experience of the recent decision and its effect and designs a new strategy for the upcoming five years, namely from 2022-2027. In addition, some of the experience from hospitals worldwide can also be applied to the case of Australian public hospitals’ strategy because Australian healthcare faces the same challenges that are faced globally. Namely, such trends include the nursing shortage, growing demand for healthcare due to the aging of the population, and the COVID-19 pandemic that has impacted nearly 3 million Australians and caused 4726 deaths (Dobson et al., 2021, p. 27). Hence, the paper proposes a development strategy for Australian public hospitals in the next five years.
The nursing shortage is one of the biggest challenges that the Australian healthcare system faces. Healthcare providers are essential workers in the job market. However, there is a constantly growing demand for healthcare practitioners, and nurses in particular. There is a variety of complex causes that led to this situation. In particular, the stress of the job itself causes nurses to work long hours and make life-altering decisions, which in conclusion leads to burnout, decreases the retention of experienced workers, and makes it less attractive to the future generation of nurses. The continuous nature of this issue creates a cycle that needs to be changed.
The nursing shortage has various effects on nurses as well as patients. Due to a lack of staff, healthcare providers have to face a heavy workload. This results in less time for operations, which causes bypassing of safety protocols and incomplete communication (Hoseini-Esfidarjani, and Negarandeh, 2017, p. 196). For patients, this means that treatment will continue longer than expected. Moreover, nurses pay less attention to details which leads to mistakes and brain strain that could potentially lead to over-or under-medication. Excessive stress exposure leads to reduced job performance and a greater risk of medical errors (Marć et al., 2019, p. 12). Finally, nurses seek more shortcuts, which leads to compromised quality of patient care, higher risks of infections, and compromised data security.
Human resource planning has a significant role to play in the realization of the strategic objectives of healthcare organizations. In a typical healthcare organization, the strategic objectives encompass the provision of the best healthcare services for the target population at the most affordable cost. Human resource planning is integrated effectively into these strategic objectives by assisting in the selection and retention of the most qualified staff to provide the best healthcare services for the organization. In addition, HR planning enables a healthcare organization to deliver on its strategic objectives at the lowest possible cost, hence maximizing the healthcare investments made by the organization.
In the healthcare organization, the HR department facilitates the HR planning functioning through recruitment, selection, and retention (Ansah et al., 2018, p. 515). Through recruitment and selection, this department facilitates HR planning by ensuring that the healthcare organization has the most appropriate balance between the strategic demands of the organization and the workforce available at the disposal of the organization. In addition, the HR department enhances workforce planning by implementing policies that target the retention of staff, thus overcoming the staff shortages that hinder effective planning. The management and financial departments improve planning by creating flexible working routines and ensuring proper and timely compensation of the healthcare staff.
The nursing shortage is an issue of extreme importance, and there the resolution of that problem should involve multiple strategies. One of them is by reducing stress and burnout. Various ways can be applied to lower the risks of burnout. Combining those strategies allows for more effective prevention. Tracking the workload of nurses to avoid long hours, ensuring they have enough sleep, and having a healthy workplace environment, which could offer help when needed, are the strategies provided in this paper. In addition, the strategies must be easy to implement into one’s lifestyle and schedule, so they are natural.
To build a more robust workforce, there needs to be a seamless collaboration between the various departments within the organization. However, it is challenging to ensure cooperation between the departments that are tasked with planning. Despite these challenges, a healthcare organization should include HR planning as one of its strategic objectives as a way of enhancing collaboration among departments (Willis, Cave, and Kunc, 2018, p. 253). HR planning should be prioritized in all the departments across the organization. In addition, each department in the healthcare organization should have a workforce planner tasked with implementing the organizational policies of planning.
A succession plan prepares an organization to fill in vital positions in case there are any departures within the management structure. Unpreparedness can cause chaos since daily management skills are required to run and develop healthcare facilities so that they can meet the growing demands of cost-effectiveness, high-quality care, and adherence to legal requirements. When healthcare organizations experience challenges in their succession plan, it can lead to the downfall of the institution.
Most healthcare organizations choose to have a succession plan but are faced with limitations when trying to implement the plan. However, nearly two-thirds of healthcare facilities do not have an existing succession strategy. Best leaders emerge from other ranks within the facility through adequate support and development opportunities. The succession plan should consider not only the top executive positions but also all levels within the organization. Planning helps the organization to have direction and provide the right services successfully for the patients and other clients.
Healthcare organizations are often created to save lives and deliver better healthcare services as per the needs of patients. Patient safety in delivering healthcare services is often the main priority of any healthcare organization. To improve their performance in service delivery, healthcare organizations often use the services of a performance improvement plan. A performance plan is an official procedure that contains major factors or areas that require specific adjustments to maintain better performance and service delivery. In these adjustments, formal communication is made between employees and employers or supervisors.
To implement a quality plan, a healthcare organization has to be evaluated and audited. The results of the evaluation and auditing will be useful in the accreditation or application of the quality plan to enable it to achieve its objectives. According to Badgery-Parker et al. (2019, p. 208), the main purpose of implementing a quality plan is to ensure that any factors or reasons that are counterproductive to organizational goals are rectified. Its implementation will ensure that an organization does not lose or shift focus, especially on providing better and safer quality health services to patients.
Accreditation standards have a certain level of impact on how an organization provides quality and safe services to patients. According to Nugroho et al. (2018, p. 210), accreditation is the key feature in ensuring quality; safe, patient-centered services are provided. For Australian general public hospitals to ensure they achieve their objectives, they should, therefore, use accreditation as a strategy for ensuring the improvement of quality is continuous.
When delivering services to patients, patient safety is one major factor the Australian general public hospital puts into consideration. Patient safety, according to Lawati et al. (2018, p. 8), is defined by the World Health Organization as the process of preventing healthcare-related accidents and errors that may have negative adverse effects on patients. It also includes ensuring that no patient is harmed during the process of healthcare provision. If patient safety is not taken seriously by any healthcare organization, patients may end up suffering things like further injuries, developmental disabilities, or even death in serious cases.
Another strategic objective of Australian public hospitals is increasing the accessibility of healthcare. There is a priority population that will be affected by the intervention to improve healthcare service access. These groups of populations are not fully capable of finding quality healthcare independently due to poverty or because of the nature of their existence. The minority group of populations forms the priority population. For instance, the priority population may include people living with disabilities, children below five years, the elderly above 67 years, uninsured persons, persons in poverty, and pregnant women (Dixit and Sambasivan, 2018, n. p.). In addition, it is a challenge for the Aboriginals since they face inadequate health care services, which increases the prevalence rates of the disease among the communities. The needs of the priority population are to improve their access to medical care and insurance.
Transition is feasible through the partnership between the county and the hospital. They can respond to the main challenges that make it difficult to access healthcare. They can transition to value-based healthcare delivery by addressing the geographic, financial, transportation, educational, and socioeconomic challenges (Gorman, 2018, p. 133). For instance, considering geographic barriers, the region can establish other hospital-affiliated clinics in other areas which do not have clinic facilities. In addition, the financial barrier among persons living below the poverty line can be addressed by making available Medicare and affordable medical Insurance programs for all people. The county can also improve the public transport network to all areas to enable people to easily access the available healthcare facilities.
The uninsured population should be of higher priority. The uninsured populations are not capable of accessing healthcare unless they have adequate income. The case is worse for the uninsured population, which lives below the poverty line. If the state can promote the issuance of affordable health insurance services to the population, it becomes easier for people to access healthcare services. The insurance should cover the old, the young, female, and the male gender.
In conclusion, some of the key strategic priorities are related to the issues of the nursing shortage and making healthcare accessible for vulnerable populations. Hence, hospitals should cooperate with governmental and private organizations that support vulnerable communities. Addressing those challenges during the next five years would improve the quality of healthcare and improve the public healthcare sector in general. Therefore, the vision statement of the Australian public hospitals should provide the highest quality of healthcare to the broadest amount of people while saving costs and ensuring the even flow of its operations.
References
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Badgery-Parker, T., Pearson, S. A., Chalmers, K., Brett, J., Scott, I. A., Dunn, S., and Elshaug, A. G., 2019. Low-value care in Australian public hospitals: prevalence and trends over time. BMJ quality & safety, 28(3), 205-214.
Dixit, S. K., and Sambasivan, M., 2018. A review of the Australian healthcare system: A policy perspective. SAGE open medicine, 6, 2050312118769211.
Dobson, H., Malpas, C. B., Burrell, A. J., Gurvich, C., Chen, L., Kulkarni, J., and Winton-Brown, T., 2021. Burnout and psychological distress amongst Australian healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Australasian Psychiatry, 29(1), 26-30.
Gorman, V. L. A., 2019. Future emergency nursing workforce: what the evidence is telling us. Journal of Emergency Nursing, 45(2), 132-136.
Hoseini-Esfidarjani, S. S., and Negarandeh, R., 2017. A new view towards resolving the nursing shortage challenge. Journal of Hayat, 23(3), 196-200.
Lawati, M. H. A., Dennis, S., Short, S. D., and Abdulhadi, N. N., 2018. Patient safety and safety culture in primary health care: a systematic review. BMC family practice, 19(1), 1-12.
Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., and Januszewicz, P., 2019. A nursing shortage–a prospect of global and local policies. International nursing review, 66(1), 9-16.
Nugroho, B., and Sjaaf, A. C. 2019. The Impact of Accreditation on the Quality of Hospital Service. In 6th International Conference on Public Health 2019 (pp. 279-286). Sebelas Maret University.
Willis, G., Cave, S., and Kunc, M., 2018. Strategic workforce planning in healthcare: A multi-methodology approach. European Journal of Operational Research, 267(1), 250-263.
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