Allocation and Priority: Resource Management in Healthcare Settings

This report delves into the critical concepts of resource allocation and priority setting within a hospital environment, specifically addressing the care needs of children and the elderly. It explores various resource types, including financial, physical (equipment), and human resources (healthcare professionals), and emphasizes the importance of establishing care priorities for both age groups, recognizing their distinct requirements and the need for specialized care. The report also examines the economic and non-economic factors influencing care strategies, such as the implementation of care ethics, resource allocation policies, and priority setting methodologies. It discusses the role of care givers, resource allocation systems, and the application of instruments like the Aged Care Functioning Instrument (ACFI). Furthermore, the report highlights parameters of priority setting, including immunization, physical activities, and malnutrition, and their implications for children and the elderly, offering insights into effective resource management and care strategies within healthcare settings. The report also covers the importance of vaccination, physical activities and addressing malnutrition in both children and the elderly.

Running head: ALLOCATION AND PRIORITY
Name of the student
University name
Author’s note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................2
care ethics........................................................................................................................2
Resource allocation for care of children..........................................................................3
Priority setting for elderly................................................................................................5
Parameters of priority setting:.........................................................................................6
Physical activities................................................................................................................7
Malnutrition.........................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The current assignment focuses on the concept of allocation of resources and priority
setting for catering to the care needs of children and old age people in a hospital setting. The
resources could be diversified into different types such as financial resources, physical resources
such as machines and equipments. The human resources also play a crucial role over here which
includes recruiting the right healthcare professionals.
The assignment emphasizes upon setting up of priority care needs of the children and the
elderly. The requirements for both the age groups are different and require high degree of
specializations. The assignment also focuses upon the economical and no-economical measures
which further impacts upon the care strategies undertaken within a hospital environment.
Care ethics
As a pediatric care giver, one bears the responsibility of caring for many delicate and
vulnerable lives each day. It’s fully ethical to set priorities of quality care giving on every shift
assigned to without fail which forthrightly includes physical presence. Even though the child
medical profession is quite involving and overwhelmingly demanding, the individuals in these
positions should ensure they attend to all children's emotional and physical needs (Ameritech
College of Healthcare 2015). Openness to the child-patient family and any other supervisor(s) is
a virtue to be upheld at all time. Commitment to provide the best care to the child should be
paramount given that terminal illnesses aren't a usual occurrence in children. The
"uncommonness" of the disease incidence presents the child's care provider with unique
challenges in care provision to the child and his or her family (Get palliative care 2017).
Although diverse clientele groups often demand various needs, the resources to satisfy
these requirements are redundantly scarce. Nevertheless, these conditions still do require

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satisfying, and thus individuals or entities have to devise means to curb them. One way of
achieving this is via ordering them in a hierarchical format beginning with the most
sensitive/demanding. Priority setting culminates to the "process of involving clients and
stakeholders in determining which needs are most important" (The University of Arizona 2010).
Priority setting at the hospital level.
In the recent past, priority setting research has delved on macro and micro level
surprisingly despising the hospital level of health care provision (Barasa, Molyneux, English and
Cleary 2015). Barasa, Molyneux, English, and Cleary quotes that the neglecting of the
institutional level should now be covered given the essential responsibility that hospitals Harbor
in providing health care services (2015). It's prudent not to view patient care provision as a
comprehensive treatment practice since patient needs, across all demographics, are diverse and
multifaceted (King University 2014). The changes in adults hold potential positive or negative
health precursors even as many of the elderly's body functions continually deteriorate (King
University 2014).
Resource allocation for care of children
The provision of optimum and standard care services are dependent on allocation of the
right amount of resources. For the purpose of which the resource allocation system needs to be
designed. As commented by Norheim et al. (2014), the funding for the personal budget is done
by the council aimed towards the availability of supportive frameworks for meeting the care
needs of the children. Therefore, in order to meet the diverse care requirements of children the
Australian government, Department of Health (DOH), have inculcated a number of intervention
policies aimed towards child health care within a clinical setup. As commented by Smith et al.
(2013), the policies are aimed towards the allocation of optimal resources for implementing

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programs such as Child Health Check Initiative(CHCI) and Expanding Health Service Delivery
Initiative (EHSDI). The resource allocation and the funding for the allocation of the resources
are dependent upon differentiating and prioritising the levels of support needed by the children.
The support levels can be differentiated into low support, some support, small support, lots of
support and exceptional support requirements.
The support service requirements can be divided into different bandings based upon the
Resource allocation system (RAS) score. The RAS score can be divided into different score
groups such as – 0-69, 70-145, 146-185, 186-210, 211-220. As asserted by Nord and Johansen
(2014), a score 69 or below means less support is required by the growing children. In this
context, the health and well being outcomes are met through the provision of universal services.
The score board of 131-145 points at small support service requirements, where the child depicts
a mix of health needs. Therefore, children facing such adverse conditions need to provided with
adequate support with the help of equipments and well trained staff and nurses. The score of
171-185 means that universal services alone are not sufficient to meet the health requirements of
the children. Therefore, personal budgeting and continued support through social services can be
helpful. This is further supported by high and very complex care needs, which aims at providing
care and support services through the integration of multidisciplinary channels. The multiple
channels include health, education and social care services which are extended through EHSDI.
The priority setting forms an important component of the care plan and treatment process.
For catering to the care concerns of the children within a hospital setting the “assessing cost
effectiveness” initiative had been applied over here. The method specifies the community value,
combines technical and due process and is explicit in nature. As commented by Whitty et al.
(2014), the care provision is based upon guidance from economic theory, social ethics, empirical

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experiences. This helps in addressing the patient centred needs by drawing upon a specified list
of plan.
Priority setting for elderly
Allocation of resources for the elderly is dependent upon the setting up of and
implementation of important instruments such as the Aged care functioning instrument (ACFI).
The implementation of such policies helps in focussing upon the core care concerns for the
budgeting and the allocation of policies. As commented by Hipgrave et al. (2014), the
implementation of such approaches are useful in measuring as well as checking the average care
costs in longer hospital stays. The funds are allocated based upon profiling of the care needs or
concerns of the patients. As argued by Drake (2014), caring for old people often brings us to
dealing with the concepts of end-of –life palliative care. Thus, such care provisions are mainly
provided to patient’s suffering from incurable chronic conditions. The only aim of the provision
of such care treatments is to make death a less painful experience for the support users.
The priority setting in the following area of care management is mainly non-economic in
nature. This could be attributed to the dependency upon huge infrastructural support such as life
support systems and modern diagnostic interventions and tools. However, a mixed method could
be followed over here which includes Program Budgeting and Marginal Analysis (PBMA) along
with consensus priority setting. The PBMA approach is based upon resource re-allocation and
follows an explicit manner of decision making (Conklin et al. 2015). The process is supported by
hard and soft evidences which help in implementing the resource allocation system.
Additionally, implementing a consensus based approach helps in providing support services to
the ones with impaired cognition and decision making approaches (Mitton et al. 2014). The
consensus approach keeps the wishes and the demands of the patients at the centre of the care

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treatment process. However, the same also takes into consideration the valuable inputs from the
attending physicians or the family members of the support users.
Parameters of priority setting:
The CDC quotes that immunization is not for the children alone (2017). This is because
childhood vaccinations do wear-off as one age (CDC 2017). An individual may be prone to
immunizable illnesses "due to age, lifestyle, health condition, job or travel" (CDC 2017). It is
therefore proper for every individual to undergo childhood, traveling, career-related, health-
related and age-related immunization procedures. It is prudent to note that adult vaccination is
more condition-based than is child immunization. Also, more than ten Million children, under
five years of age, are estimated to die every year with roughly 70% succumbing to preventable
diseases. This shows the urgency of preteen and teenage vaccination over adult vaccination since
the immunization procedures are essential steps towards children health and future protection
(U.S. Department of Health & Human Services 2017). Health care providers are usually the ones
who administer vaccines and thus play a significant role in educating children caretakers of the
vaccines' life-saving functionalities and safety (Miller et al. 2015). Medical institutions should,
therefore, prioritize available resources focusing them on disease prevention practices like the
preteen vaccination processes and awareness. Recent studies in the United States show that
massive government expenditure savings ($1.38 trillion) were realized when the government
adopted a children vaccination program for vaccine provision and administering to all children
whose families could not support their acquisition (Whitney et al. 2014). The savings were
realized due to prevented illnesses, hospital admissions and premature deaths which cut on the
demographic working age group thus reducing and or terminating their respective economic
input (Whitney et al. 2014). Health care facilities should, therefore, concentrate resources on

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child vaccination activities by providing required training to medical practitioners, public
vaccine awareness, prevention drugs and equipment, seasonal follow-up with the kids in learning
institutions among other practices promoting child immunization (Miller et al. 2015).
Physical activities
Physical activities have been said to promote public health responsibilities achievement
by local authorities in places where lost productivity is estimated at billions of dollars due to
sickness absence and premature death (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
2013). Many of the chronic illnesses in the elderly are diet and lifestyle related which means that
the individuals possess prior experience of physical exercise. The elderly sick can, therefore,
perform physical activities with minimal supervision given their high cognitive abilities relative
to the preteens. There are also several facilities and equipment in healthcare institutions that can
be used by the sick elderly to perform physical exercises. On the other hand, children lack the
prior experience of physical activities, the cognitive ability to comprehend the need for physical
activities added to their inability to perform these tasks on their own. Despite the vitality of
physical activities to the children, the severely sick amidst them sometimes fail to get as much
physical exercise as they require (Canadian pediatric Society 2011). To alleviate this situation,
medical institutions should (New Jersey Department of Children and Families 2017):
i. Set aside at-least 50 square feet room space per child to allow maximum child
mobility and exercise space.
ii. Have personalized individual resources for children with different ailments to prevent
spreading of communicable diseases while at the same time allowing the physical
activity of each child.
iii. Acquire outdoor space for children physical activities.

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All in all, the healthcare facility should have adequate health care personnel due to the uttermost
and constant care needed for the sick children as they perform the physical activities.
Malnutrition
Malnutrition, the nutrition imbalance, can also be defined as cause and consequence of ill health
originating from proteins, energy or micronutrients deficiency in a human body. Malnutrition
directly causes an estimated 300,000 deaths per annum and is indirectly causing roughly half of
all under 5years children deaths. Contrary to the belief that malnutrition is a condition affecting
starving children in third world countries, malnutrition is common in developed countries too
especially in hospitalized populations (patient 2016). In these communities, the elderly suffer
malnutrition if they are suffering from diseases or conditions that affect appetite, have
gastrointestinal function problems or have severe mental health concerns. On the other hand,
children who are susceptible to malnutrition if they are premature (weaning time), chronically ill,
neglected by caregivers among other poverty related complexions (patient 2016). Health
facilities should, therefore, be ultimately vigilant of the sick pre teen’s dietary needs by
providing balanced diets to the children thus managing and curbing malnutrition.
Conclusion
The assignment takes into consideration the different resource allocation procedures
along with priority setting for the care and management of the old and the young. In the current
assignment a Resource allocation system where scores have been provided to individual support
users based on their care needs.
The scores allocated further helps in designing of the care plan whether some and small
support services are required or exceptional support services are required. The aged care
however follows the ACFI framework for resource allocation. The setting up of the priorities

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forms another important constituent of the care management process. Thus, implementing
approaches such as ACE and PBMA can help in sustaining the resources for long term care.

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