Analysis of Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia

This report provides an analysis of selection criteria within the Australian Health Department, drawing on several research articles. The report examines factors influencing workforce retention and recruitment, particularly in rural and remote areas. It explores the impact of health service accredit...Read More

Running head: SELECTION CRITERIA IN HEALTH DEPARTMENT OF AUSTRALIA
SELECTION CRITERIA IN HEALTH DEPRTEMENT OF AUSTRALIA
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1Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
Table of Contents
Article 1:..........................................................................................................................................2
Article 2:..........................................................................................................................................4
Article 3:..........................................................................................................................................6
Article 4:..........................................................................................................................................8
Article 5:........................................................................................................................................10

2Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
Article 1:
Russell, D. J., Wakerman, J., & Humphreys, J. S. (2013). What is a reasonable length of
employment for health workers in Australian rural and remote primary healthcare services?.
Australian Health Review, 37(2), 256-261.
This paper mainly aims at the optimization of employees’ retention in rural areas and
remote areas of primary healthcare (PHC) in Australia. It is noticed that currently the healthcare
sector lags the PHC workforce benchmark which could have helped in understanding the
geographic context and profession. The research question on this article is to find out the
implications for practitioners and to know more about the current situation in remote and small
rural areas of Australia (Adzei & Atinga, 2012). It is important for the article to find out the
proposed benchmark for the reasonable length of PHC workforce retention. Three broad
strategies was sorted and they can be strategically used for the purpose of finding out the
proposing benchmark related to workforce length of stay. The three broad strategies were
following:
1. Comprehensive literature review related to PHC workforce.
2. Secondary analysis for the existing Australian PHC workers,
3. Postal survey with 108 remote and rural PHC services, actual workforce retention pattern
and identifying perceived pattern (Asuke et al., 2016).
After the full analysis of this survey along with secondary data analysis it was found that
it is very important for the healthcare sector to establish a benchmark for the retention ratio. The
analysis for primary reflected the difference between the retention ratio by geographic location
and some professions which took a lot of time to appear and also it was not identifiable. A proper

3Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
supply of benchmark is set for the recruitment and retention process of international employment
in the healthcare sector of Australia for the rural and remote settings. Finally after the detailed
discussion it is concluded by the researchers that the difference between the recruitment and
retention benchmark according to their profession and geographic location can be easily and
empirically derived (Birnbaum et al., 2011). The managers of the healthcare sector is provided
with an opportunity to improve the recruitment criteria and retention ration with the performance
along with reducing the cost strategically for their staff replacement.
This article can be useful for the review of literature as it mainly focuses over setting a
proper benchmark for retention of the healthcare staffs which helps in gathering information for
the cost involved in the selection criteria of employment in healthcare sector. If there will be a
benchmark and less recruitment of staffs then there will be more retention of the staffs. This
article helps to understand the best practice and the underpinning of retention strategies. This
article also helps in understanding the if the workforce planner uses proper strategies along with
their knowledge for baseline retention then there will be recruitment for proper staff and that
would include strict selection criteria for it. This helped to guide a proper design before the
selection process to avoid the high cost of staff replacement and save time as well. Cost neutral
retention strategies also helps in understanding the selection criteria of that organization as well.

4Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
Article 2:
Greenfield, D., Kellner, A., Townsend, K., Wilkinson, A., & Lawrence, S. A. (2014). Health
service accreditation reinforces a mindset of high-performance human resource management:
lessons from an Australian study. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 26(4), 372-
377.
Its main objective is to properly investigate and find out whether the program of
accreditation and facilities of HCOs (healthcare organizations) includes the maintenance
strategies for high-performance of HRM (human resource management) system or not. Here the
research question is to find out the relevant strategies which will help the human resource
managers with the solution for how to strategically include and maintain the performance quality
of human resource management system while the accreditation program was facilitated with
healthcare organization (Buykx et al., 2010). This will be helpful to find out the criteria and
strictness while recruiting healthcare staffs by the HRM which will ensure that efficient
employees are only recruited. For the study purpose, researchers have used Cross-sectional
multimethod study to find out the solution for the research question. The main participants were
the healthcare organization and they actively attended the program under Australian Council on
Healthcare Standards Evaluation and Quality Improvement Program (EQuIP 4) that was from
2007 to 2011. The outcomes from this discussion was ratings across the performance measure,
EQuIP 4 HRM criteria, HRM information (Surveyor reports) and the experience & opinion
regarding accreditation and HRM (interview data).
The result after the analysis of this article reflects that healthcare organizations in
Australia have been identified as the organization with high performance on accreditation HRM

5Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
criteria. Best practices are linked with the need of excellence for internal motivation. It was
noticed that participating in accreditation programs could be less significant as well as secondary
need to influence. This program also helps to identify the HCO opportunities for external and
internal review along with assessing the performance. These activities are helps to get feedback
on specific events and get reflective learning as well. HCOs get proper opportunity and support
to strategies their performance level and work for high performance HRM system using the
participation in accreditation program (Ginder, Kelly-Reid & Mann, 2017). After the discussion,
it was concluded by the researchers that HCO have made a proper usage of accreditation
program and utilized it as their opportunity. Organization’s mentality will help the HCOs to
utilize the accreditation program as their factor to improve the performance quality of the staffs
and also to enhance the management of the delivery care and staffs. External assessment was
done which helped the HCOs to enhance the positive events which helped to validate the
credibility for their future actions towards their management and draw a pattern of current
direction to work on it and improve the situation as well. Australian Research Council’s Linkage
Projects funding scheme have provided fund for this research work.
This article is useful for the literature review for getting an idea about how the HCOs are
maintaining their performance level and managing their staffs. This leads to a fact how they are
recruiting the potential employees for their job to get a high quality performance from them. This
research study will be helpful because it provides information about what benefits HCO got after
participating in the accreditation program. This program helped to improve the organizational
culture which states that the selection criteria for employees will be more organized and
professional (Choobineh et al., 2012).

6Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
Article 3:
Townsend, K., Lawrence, S. A., & Wilkinson, A. (2013). The role of hospitals' HRM in shaping
clinical performance: a holistic approach. The international journal of human resource
management, 24(16), 3062-3085.
The main aim of this research article is to find out the management & strategic processes
and safety & continuity process of quality. The research question here is to find out the
significant relation between the influence of multiple process and influence of HRM functioning
in effecting the organizational performance in the healthcare sectors of Australia. In the research
paper it was noted that there consists of a very huge pressure over the hospitals to gain high level
clinical performance (Greenfield et al., 2014). It was found that HRM processes has a positive
relation and influence over the organizational level of performance. However these effects may
get evaluated in the isolation which means that the exact reason of influencing the performance
with the help of sub-systems processes via interactions are not clear. This research study have
developed a proper model which will define the influence of HRM process emerging from other
three hospital sub-systems. Researchers have utilized difficult multi-rated and industry based
hospitals for collecting accreditation data related to almost 465 Australian hospitals. The
researchers have evaluated the validity of construction, validity of discrimination and reliability
of the collected data which reflects that performance related to clinical of the outcome and
relevant processes which are appearing from four of the hospital’s distinct sub-systems.
Hypothesis testing is used for the purpose of finding out the relationship (Helleberg et al., 2012).

7Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
It was analyzed that there is a significant influence of the information management,
context of the management, effective functioning of the HRM department and processes of
health & safety department over the proper continuity of high quality patient care. This ensures
that the selection process of the healthcare department also gets influenced by the quality of the
management in hospitals because if there is a proper management then it is expected that hospital
will have relevant criteria for selecting their employees. At last it was concluded by the
researchers that it is very important for the hospital management to manage their activities in
such a way that the interdependent and simultaneous work of multiple process continues without
any hassle because it is evident that the process have a positive influence over the effective
functioning of every HRM process in each and every hospitals and it shows a high quality in
organizational level of performance in every hospital as well. It is recommended to adopt a
proper management skill for this purpose so that the smooth process continues in a long term
basis.
This article was useful for the literature review because it stated that the effectiveness of
HRM process can highly influence the functioning of organizational performance. This reflects
that if the HRM department of every hospital starts to function properly then they will start
recruiting more relevant and accurate people who will be an asset for the hospital. Proper human
resource management is needed so that selection criteria becomes a bit tough which will only
allow relevant employees to pass. This will ensure the quality of the organizational performance
is always maintained (Keane et al., 2011).

8Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
Article 4:
Keane, S., Smith, T., Lincoln, M., & Fisher, K. (2011). Survey of the rural allied health
workforce in New South Wales to inform recruitment and retention. Australian Journal of Rural
Health, 19(1), 38-44.
The main objective of this paper is to properly investigate the employment, demographics
and educational factors which are affecting the retention and recruitment process in NSW (New
South Wales) of Australia. The main focus is towards the rural allied health department
professionals. The research questions which needs to be find out in this article was to get the
exact idea of the influence of all these factors over the health department. Tools used for the
purpose of this study are cross-sectional survey and descriptive study. The areas which were
focused are the rural, remote and regional areas of New South Wales in Australia. Sample size
for this study involves 1879 respondents from 21 and more different health occupations. These
respondents are rational in nature and they are selected randomly from every hospitals.
Researchers have involved different types of variables which includes the age, marital status,
gender, hours worked, highest qualification, their employment sectors, community size, whether
they are continuing their education, rural origin and other essentials. Among this list of variables,
some are compared as per the profession and gender. This is done to differentiate what are the
similarities and dissimilarities between the people as per their profession and gender and
calculate the average needs of the respondents (Lanctôt & Guay, 2014)
From the result it was find out that 70% of the respondents were women and their mean
age was 42 years. However, the rest were men and they had more experience and practical
knowledge regarding their job and they were older than the women. Sixty percent of the

9Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
respondents were from rural origin and seventy four percent partnered. Most of the partners were
also working in the same organization or in different place with a different job profile. 84% of
the respondents use to work in centers of ten thousand or more people. 46% positions were
accounted by private sector 40% by public sector. Eleven percent of the respondent used to work
at different sectors and eighteen percent of the respondents were self-employed for a fulltime
basis. Even after job satisfaction, 56% of the respondents left their job after 10 years and 28% of
the respondents were retired persons. 90% of the respondents were qualified form Australia and
80% and more held a higher qualification degree (Park, Jung & Suk, 2017). After this study it
was concluded that NSW rural allied health workforce consists mainly of female personnel along
with high experience and maturity. It was suggested that recruitment criteria should mainly target
the rural high schools students and also promote the rural practice with positive aspects like the
autonomy and diversity. Another recommendation was provided which includes a change in
retention strategies which must involve career development opportunities for their employees
and also flexible employment options.
This article was mainly helpful for this literature review because it helped to identify the
actual condition of the hospital staffs and what is their mentality regarding the situation. It is
important for the researchers to find out the actual need of the employees along with their
qualification so that the selection criteria can be customized accordingly. This article can help to
identify the exact management requirements and help them to strategically plan a proper
employment recruitment process (Park, Jung & Suk, 2017).

10Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
Article 5:
Buykx, P., Humphreys, J., Wakerman, J., & Pashen, D. (2010). Systematic review of effective
retention incentives for health workers in rural and remote areas: towards evidence‐based policy.
Australian Journal of Rural Health, 18(3), 102-109.
Another article has shown the exact need of effective retention incentives so that the
employment of health organization is of high quality. This also provides an idea how the
recruitment process should be to employ required people who will have a higher retention ratio.
The main focus of this paper is to review the evidence which shows the effectiveness of
strategies owned for retention of the health workers in remote and rural areas in the hospitals of
Australia. Here the research question is equal to the objective of the study which is to find out
the exact effectiveness of the retention ratio over the healthcare department workers in every
hospitals of Australia. Six program evaluation articles were reviewed to study the effectiveness
and selection criteria in the healthcare departments (Russell, Wakerman & Humphreys, 2013).
Eight more articles were also reviewed to get an idea of how the retention ratio influences the
quality of the performance in the hospitals. Inclusion or exclusion of some relevant selection
criteria are also reviewed in some articles to study the effectiveness of the retention ratio. The
study reveals that different methods and strategies are owned by the health departments to
introduce them in different activities so that it reduces unnecessary staff turnover and increases
the retention ratio of the worker. Proper roster systems, extra facilities and completion of other
essential needs helps the management to increase the retention ration.
There is an evidence that includes the flexible shift timings also increases the retention
ratio among the old employees because they have more practical knowledge and many years of

11Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
experience. Multifaceted response can also be used to increase the retention ratio among the
workers. Which is very much required for the hospital. As this paper mainly focuses over the
remote and rural area heal workforce, it was concluded by the researchers that management
should carefully note the different needs of the healthcare workers because each and every one
has different goals in their life. Understanding it would help the management to strategies their
policies in such a way that it benefits the organization as well as the workers. Six of the
components should be kept in mind while designing a framework like the remuneration system,
staffing process, infrastructure, workplace environment, community and family support, social
recognition and their professional environment. All of these frameworks will help the
management to form a proper and required evaluation to increase the retention ratio and also
compare the pre and post intervention of the employees (Tarcan et al., 2017).
This article is useful for the literature review because it points out the exact need of the
employees and how their personal and professional need changes during pre and post
intervention. This article helps the managers to customize their selection criteria for each
division under healthcare department very carefully which will help them to find out the relevant
person as their employee and increase their retention ratio by providing them with the exact thing
that the employees are in actual need (Westbrook, Ellett & Asberg, 2012).

12Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
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retention incentives for health workers in rural and remote areas: towards evidence‐based
policy. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 18(3), 102-109.
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service accreditation reinforces a mindset of high-performance human resource

13Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
management: lessons from an Australian study. International Journal for Quality in
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workforce in New South Wales to inform recruitment and retention. Australian Journal
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14Selection Criteria in Health Department of Australia
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