Assignment on Health Policy and Planning
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Added on 2020-04-07
Assignment on Health Policy and Planning
Added on 2020-04-07
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Health policy and planningNameTitleUniversity Affiliation
Health policy and planning 2Health policy and planningPlanning is simply deciding on something or making arrangements for something in advance. It outlines where a person or an organization wants to go, ways of getting there and atimeline for the process. Planning takes into account decision making that are reflective of future needs and addresses these needs. In details it therefore involves future goals specification and lay down of courses of action that will bring about the set achievements (Wallerstein & Duran, 2010). In the public sector health service planning context, planning is focused on supporting and developing a high quality service delivery health system to the community. Health service plans precisely seek to progress a given populations health status and at the same time safeguard access, equity and fairness of the health system and its responsiveness to the specific perceived community’s needs. These planning intend to achievethe above goals by providing effective and efficient health services. It is however limited to the available methods, means of healthcare and resources. Therefore, this kind of planning is aprocess of allying the changing need patterns with service delivery arrangements that are in existence so as to make maximum utilization of the available resources (Stonhope, 2015). It puts into significant service provision the strategic directions and policy of healthcare organizations. The transparent and comprehensive process of defining strategies and service objectives helps in the achievement of the same.Amongst operational, budgetary, strategic and service enablers planning, health service delivery planning is key. It is oriented to the organizations future adopting a long termperspective compared to the other types of planning. It puts the organization in a strategic position to address health issues that may emerge and are vital to contemporary to healthcare. The environment in which healthcare delivery occurs is more and more dynamic with ever changing technological advances, community expectations and government priorities. There exist ever increasing demands and pressures on the health system of the public sector amidst constrained budgets (Swayne et al., 2012). In future there will be even increased pressure due to increasing chronic disease prevalence and ageing population. In this light, it is vital that services have the capability and are well planned to be in a position to respond to the evolvingchanges to meet population needs.These changes include: population needs and populations; it includes studying population characteristics i.e. social economic status, growth, cultural diversity and age groupings. In addition to that, coming up with the populations’ risk factors like excessive consumption of alcohol, smoking and obesity which may lead to different health issues, planning can be done in such a way that services are designed to reduce the target populations’ risks (Trivedi et al., 2012). Emerging technologies and clinical evidence; understanding there impact helps to shape organization and delivery of future services. It includes changes in the understanding and knowledge of disease trend, service delivery models and treatment techniques. Foretelling service need in future; services demand in future as a result of population changes, treatment technologies change and disease patterns change is taken into account here. Through these assessments future service development decisions are better informed (Polit & Beck, 2012). Resources allocation prioritization; due to limited availability of resources to invest in the health sector, prioritization done to make sure
Health policy and planning 3areas of greatest need have resources directed towards them. Service efficiency improvement; exploration is done to bring on board alternative options that can meet increasing demand and optimize delivery of services. These may include service delivery in different settings including homes. Providing sustainable and safe services; service viability i.e. high quality care that exceed or meet minimum set standards. Two methods can however be used in developing a health service plan as follows.Population based planningEvery communities or countries healthcare service should be focused to reach its entire population. Attend to the populations’ needs and cover promotion, preventive and curative health services. It involves a collaborative and systematic assessment of the needs of the population. Emphases are put on the populations’ current health status identification, health problems determinants and risk factors, development and analysis of interventions and their link to outputs (Drummond et al., 2015). It relies on stakeholders’ effective collaborationand can involve other sectors stake holders to discuss and identify health issues and come to an agreement on regulations that will progress the concerned populations health. It is based onthe values of equity (equity in access and outcomes), effectiveness (patients’ level of benefit from the provided service), accessibility (service acceptability, geographical, cultural, physical and affordability), quality (measure of the degree of service conformity to set standards) and efficiency (maximize benefits from resources use). However these planning principles conflict i.e. accessibility vs quality, efficiency vs accessibility and equity vs accessibility.Population based planning makes use of holistic data. Here needs are assessed throughpopulation surveys since it is the frequently used information collection method. This information is then used to set realistic future goals and appropriate allocation of resources. The communities’ main interests are served using this planning method (De Grot et al., 2010).A need assessment process is put into place and it describes the local people’s state of health, identifies causes of illnesses and major health causing risk factors. It also helps in bringing to light how to address these factors. However this is not a one- time process/ activity, it is carried on over time to capture the changes that arise. It is therefore relevant for future use too. Most importantly, this method takes into account the fact that a number of factors affect health. The quality of water people drink, the air they breathe and their physical environment has an effect on their health. Family and friends emotional and social support are part of the social environment and it affects people’s health. The enjoyment of life is reduced by poverty,lifestyle behaviors’ e.g. heavy drinking and smoking will increase risk of diseases like lung cancer and avoiding these behaviors’ significantly reduces its risk. Individual biology and family genetics also play a role in one’s health (Dennis et al., 2012).AdvantagesoPublic inequalities elimination; population based healthcare makes it possible for equitable and quality care to be delivered to communities by practitioners.
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