Health Project Report on Leadership in Aged Healthcare Services

This report delves into the critical role of leadership within aged healthcare services, focusing on the challenges and potential solutions within the Australian context. The report highlights the inadequacies in current healthcare practices for the elderly, including issues of training, compliance, and the impact of complicated regulations. It emphasizes the need for strong leadership to improve the quality of care and address the disparities in healthcare access. The report compares healthcare systems in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, examining how leadership management influences service quality and efficiency. Furthermore, it underscores the importance of systematic reviews in evidence-based medical research and the potential for leadership to foster better outcomes for the aged population. The report also discusses the financial instability, physical and psychological burnouts and intrapersonal communication of the medical staff and its effect on healthcare of the aged people. The report concludes by emphasizing the need for leadership to drive improvements in aged care.

Running head: HEALTH PROJECT
Health Project
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Executive summary....................................................................................................................2
Keywords...................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
Result..........................................................................................................................................6
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
Recommendation......................................................................................................................12
Acknowledgement:..................................................................................................................14
Works Cited.............................................................................................................................16

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Executive summary
The healthcare of the aged individuals is a sensitive issue as it is seen that the service
the elderly people receive from the government regarding medical support in various
developed and developing countries is not at all up to the mark and a strong quality control is
needed. The healthcare services of the elderly people in underdeveloped countries are so poor
that it is beyond imagination of the people of some developed countries. It is widely seen that
the mortality rate is increasing rapidly in some countries and the difference in health care of
the elderly people has not gone unnoticed by the authorities of the global healthcare societies.
Thus, it can be seen that the management or the board of directors would imply more
regulations and protocols into the healthcare services industry for the aged individuals. In the
land of Australia, the healthcare of the aged individuals has been subsidised by the federal
government before a few decades, and after that, various legislatives were introduced into the
existing norms and protocols in this particular sector. In this case, it is most unfortunate that
various complicated regulations steered disorganization and complexities in this sector and
the quality of the medical services being provided to the elder people have degraded in the
past few years. Recently the government of Australia has recognized the importance of
healthcare services of the aged people by the intervention of Department of Health and
Aging, and has thus, placed the health and well-being of the senior residents of the nation as
one of the six strategic objectives. This is to make it sure that the elderly Australians can
choose and get access to the community based or residential healthcare organizations.
The leadership in clinical organization serves as a solution to the inadequate
compliance with the healthcare policies of the aged people and also regarding the assurance
in the quality of the medical support being provided to the elderly population. It is a fact that,
the challenges for the compliance of healthcare policies of the aged people are actually

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involved with scarcity of guidance, training and motivation. The leaders of these medical
organizations include medical officers or other medical staffs with relevant experience and
ability to guide the professionals in technical aspects that are appropriate for providing
medical support to the elderly population. The financial instability of the medical care unit
for the aged people is an issue in this sector. Along with this, the physical and psychological
burnouts can easily fight with intrapersonal communication and counselling of the leaders
and help the aged population. This paper sheds light on the various aspects of the hurdles
involved in the healthcare system of the aged people. The paper further highlights the
possibilities to overcome those difficulties by establishing supportive and compassionate
leadership in the healthcare service for the aged people.
Keywords
Healthcare management, training and development, leadership management and research tool
Discussion
Healthcare system is one of the most important sectors for every individuals of the
society and everyone deserves to get a medical support when needed. Unfortunately, in some
cases, it is widely seen that there are various disparities between the health care systems,
especially regarding the health care services for the elder population in various countries. As
an example, it can be said that there is a lack of detailed policies and protocols regarding
healthcare of the elder population. It is seen that the healthcare system has stepped forward
effectively and along with it, the priorities of the healthcare have changed a lot. The recent
emphasis on providing the quality and safe healthcare services to the elderly population is
dealing with multiple complicated healthcare needs can be said is an appropriate example of
it (Abdelhak, Grostick, & Hanken, 2015).

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Numerous healthcare policies serve the specified needs of the aged patients.
Implementing those policies and regulations may change the situation of the medical care for
the aged population. The primary issue in this context is the scarcity of the kind efforts and
compliance in the medical staffs to enforce those policies regarding medical support for the
aged population. The need of leadership management in the general healthcare workforce for
the elderly people can change the entire scenario and can help the professionals of this field
to understand the importance of their roles as the provider of medical services for the aged
population.
In an average Australian context, it is seen that the percentage of the people seeking
medical support over 70 years of age has increased almost ten times in the last decade, and it
is increasing day by day. Thus, the need of residential healthcare system for the aged
population would expand rapidly and would definitely meet the demands, which are also
escalating in a rapid manner. From various case studies, it is evident, that the biggest hurdle
in providing quality healthcare to the aged population is the scarcity of the training of the
health staffs for the development purpose (Kenney, 2012). Thus, proper guidance and
leadership would help to attain a medical support system of higher standards. This paper
might become the first step towards determining the leadership needs in the medical sector
for the elderly population.
For more than 40 years, the federal government of Australia has provided financial
support to the cost of medical support for the elderly population of Australia and various
government grants for the capital costs of providing the residential healthcare for the aged
people were available. In the year of 1997, the legislation governing the residential aged care
in the land of Australia was reformed (Katzenbach, Steffen, & Kronley, Cultural change that
sticks., 2012). The Aged Care Act 1997, building on the previous regulatory frameworks, has
established a new regulatory framework creating significant compliance obligations for the

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health care service for the aged people and also makes the availability of public funding
contingent on compliance by medical service providers with wide-range of requirements
(Andersen, 2014). The much needed government intervention to uplift the quality of the
residential healthcare for the aged people along with the protection of the interests of the
consumers has been justified for the reasons mentioned below:
 Residents of the aged healthcare organizations are vulnerable and desperately in need
of a leadership and protection within the organizations.
 Regarding social equality issues, Government would have to manage all the aspects
of the availability and access to the medical services.
 There are some information asymmetries, which result in parties to a transaction
having unequal access to related information (Borkowski, 2015).
In today’s market, the problem arising in the medical care system is that, the aged
population is getting deprived from the basic medical support they deserve in most cases. In
this context, the authorities of the healthcare units, both Australian and global authorities are
giving attention to this issue, as it is the responsibility of our society (Liebler J. G., 2016).
The implementation of numerous policies and regulations in various countries throughout the
globe has not actually very bright future of improvements. Especially in the sector of
residential medical care units for the aged persons, it is seen that, there is a huge lack of
training for development among the staffs and the lack of understanding the policies are
creating issues. The situation is in need of a strong leadership and guidance to get out of this
trouble. This paper highlights the limitations to the effective implementation of the medical
care plans regarding the residential sector, and explores how it can be resolved by
implementing a leadership management within the general workforce. The paper can be seen
as a primary documentation of the need for leadership management in the medical care sector

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especially designed for the aged population (Ling, Brereton, Conklin, Newbould, & Roland,
2012).
Systematic reviews are very applicable to the clinical settings by the virtue of being
highly time saving and extensively intricate research techniques, which allow the researcher
the freedom to involve extreme research work without prolonging the tenure of the research
work. A technique is specifically designed for constructing a precise and comprehensive
summary of the literature that bears relevant connection to the research questions that were
chosen for the study and that provides accurate data to make sure that there is 100% accuracy
in the study design. The data extracted from the systematic review are generally considered to
be the most dependable and transferable source of information from insignificant data and to
find the answers to the clinical questions more precisely. Thus, this might be the best research
design regarding the evidence based medical research practices. It is a fact that, systematic
reviews make the research work unequivocal and it is completely dependent on qualitative
data analysis techniques omitting the quantitative data to avoid any chances of inaccuracy or
prejudice (Salmela, Eriksson, & Fagerström, 2012) . Thus, this research study has chosen the
systematic review technique in order to get the conceivable result regarding the need of
leadership and management to be implemented regarding the healthcare support for the aged
population.
Result
The aged healthcare system of Canada and Australia is a lot similar. In this case, it is
seen that, recently there have been some major change in policies in both the countries.
Canada and Australia both have federated systems within a similar looking division of
powers between the provincial and central or state governments regarding healthcare of the
aged population (Kulik, Ryan, Harper, & George, 2014). In most of the nations, it is seen that

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the governance models are in effect creatures of provincial and state laws. In both the
countries, in Canada and Australia it is seen that to attain efficiency regarding the medical
units especially for the aged population, the use of health resources and hindrance to the pace
of cost escalation can be seen. The government of both the countries are trying to imply an
innovative leadership management to boost the quality of the service given to the aged
population in both the countries. In Australia and Canada, it is seen that there are many
renowned doctors and other medical staffs, but somehow the aged population fails to receive
proper medical support due to various issues (Oliver, Foot, & Humphries, 2014). It is seen
that in Canada, the population is not a major problem regarding this issue and they have
enough learned medical staffs, but all they need is a proper leadership management and using
that they can develop rapidly and provide excellent medical healthcare support to the aged
people of the nation. It is seen that after implying a leadership management, in last two years,
Canada has achieved a lot success compared to the other nations. The same goes with
Australia, as in Australia too, there are many scholars in the medical sector and all they want
is a proper leadership management and some new policies. In United Kingdom, the scenario
is quite different (Martin & Learmonth, 2012). In U.K there is a government sponsored
universal healthcare system known as National Health Service and NHS consists of a series
of publicly funded healthcare systems in the land of England. The healthcare system of UK is
one of the most efficient healthcare systems across the globe, and it is seen that they are
maintaining their success in this field in a way that is incomparable with other first world
countries. It is seen that government of England regarding healthcare support and efficiency
ranks first in the list and that is something that the residents of England can take pride of.
(Reid, Coleman, Johnson, & Fishman, 2010). UK is incomparable with providing medical
support to all the residents of their nation and service to the aged people is the first priority in
their department. It is seen that, aged people who live in rural areas and who comes from

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affluent background have a better life expectancy, and live healthier life that any average
urban resident of England (Szebehely & Trydegård, 2012).
NHSM does not have any particular policies addressing regarding medical supports to
the aged population and quite astonishingly, according to Szebehely & Trydegard (2013) they
are doing great without having such policies for them. In some cases, in rural and remote
regions of England, sometimes some aged people do not get proper medical support as the
medical staffs could not reach up to them due to the remoteness of those areas and sometimes
the medical staffs do not receive proper information about them in advance. These are the
minor issues that the medical board of England are facing nowadays and it is a sure thing that
the developed medical board of England would surely look into this matter and resolve it in
no time. In England, there are some medical programs specifically designed for some
different purposes, and the Strategic Health Authorities have an ambition of providing the
best medical support to the regional aged patients and also to boost the capacity of ailing
more aged people in residential sector. The Countryside Agency aims to make the medical
support for the aged people who reside at the countryside or in remote areas of the nation and
they take care of the medical aid, and that is only for the aged population of the nation. In
England, it is seen that there is no specific policies, but what their government implemented,
is that they have employed specific leadership management to the medical sector for the aged
population. In the year of 2004, the government of England has introduced a framework
regarding the quality control issues regarding providing medical support to the aged
population of the country. This specific framework provides incentives for improvement in
the quality of medical aid for the aged population. In England, there are some side effects to
the government’s approach towards the medical support for the aged population, and those
include lack of medical instruments, reduce in population’s tendency to seek professional
help, and above all the government’s inability to provide medical support to the aged

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population at government’s expenses. It is a fact that, if government tries to provide free
medical service to the aged people, the aged population who has lesser spending capability
would come up and seek professional help from the medical board.
Figure 1
(Source: "Public Financing of Long-Term Care: Federal and State Roles", 2017)
Overall ranking of the nations regarding providing medical support

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Figure 2
Source: (Young, Mudge, Banks, Ross, & Daniels, 2013)
Aged population in America is increasing
It is seen that Australian and Canadian systems of medical care especially for the aged
population has gone through many significant changes within last two decades. It is a matter
of fact that various challenges regarding rising costs, the quality of care and access and the
moral of the general healthcare workforce present in medical system of both the countries.
These issues are being acknowledged to demand far more than a structural solution. It is seen
that, greater attention of the federal government is needed in this sector to change the
behaviour of some medical staffs and thus the metamorphosis would be complete.

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Figure 3
Source: (Szebehely & Trydegård, 2012).
Assumption of elderly population in future
Figure 4
(Source: "Health Care Professionals | Continence Information", 2017)
Average expenditure regarding health issues