Health Care Reform Implementation - Research Paper Example

? Health Care Reform Implementation Health care reform entails discussions and formulation of health policies aimed at creating and changing existing government policies that effect health care delivery. Health care reform seeks to broaden the coverage of the population that receives health care services. In the United States (U.S.), this is achieved by the implementation of insurance programs in the public or private sector insurance companies. Health care reform also seeks to expand the assortment of health care givers and practitioners to give health services consumers a wide variety to choose from. Health care reform is always aimed at increasing access to health care specialists that deal with complex diseases like cancer, psychological disorders and genetic disorders. Reforms in the health sector ensure a continued advancement and improvement of the quality of health care services to a larger portion of the population. The implementation of health care reform advocates for the reduction in the cost of health care through the private and public insurance programs. There is always a need for consistent health care reform because no health care reform is perfect. This is because aspects dealt with in the health sector keep a dynamic predisposition, which requires regular and consistent innovation to ensure competence. Diseases keep on changing their severity, occurrence and target group, which requires consistent vigilance to enable the development of interventions to combat these diseases. Health reform is a process that is initiated by authorities all over the world, but the success of these reforms depends on the management approaches of handling these reforms. This paper seeks to highlight health care reform implementation and management in health care organizations. Health care reform in the US centers on the debate about the right of an individual to health care, amount of funds spent by government on health care, fairness of access, quality and sustainability (Campbell, 2008). According Campbell (2008), the funding of the health care system in the US features a mixed private-public collaboration making it the most expensive health care system in the world in terms of cost per person. Health care reform should focus on reducing the cost of health care to the consumer and at the same time improve and enhance access and quality of health care services. Management in health care organizations plays a key and integral role in ensuring the success and effectiveness of the changes and introductions to a health care program. The health care sector is characterized by the core requirement that health care organizations recognize the notion of the necessity and need for health care in societies they service. The feasibility of this concept is realized when the abovementioned requirements are not met leading to inadequacies in the health care industry. These failures are characterized by professional dominance by physicians, market failure and increased public concern and outcry over equal access to health care (Campbell, 2008). Management of health care reform implementation has seen to the successful reduction of market failure through the effective inclusion of insurance companies. These companies have helped in increasing the reach of health care services by making it more accessible because insurance makes medical care more affordable and manageable. Effective and efficient management of health care organizations (HCO) during the implementation process ensures that pertinent and lacking issues are competently catered for as stipulated by the reform policy (s). Effective management concerns about physician dominance and health care access can be effectively dealt with by the sound execution and implementation of solution policy. This is achieved by focusing and orienting a HCO’s activities to a local market that is decentralized and integrated within a community’s culture (Campbell, 2008). Strategic management in the HCO management process has significant influences on the health care reform process because it assures competence and delegation of responsibilities to the relevant organs in the system. HCO management in health care reform positively influences the competencies of health care providers and practitioners (Campbell, 2008). This is because the need to improve the quality of health care services, reform policies recommends additional training of medical personnel. Health care service delivery is advanced through the training of health service administrators, which strengthens their skills in strategic development, implementation and management. Strategic management facilitates the effective and efficient management of medical knowledge that leads to sustained improvement and increase of HCO performance. Health care reform implementation in HCO management processes are improved by strategic management practices that utilize knowledge resources (Campbell, 2008). The utilization of knowledge resources and capabilities puts a HCO in position to exploit them within and without the organization. Knowledge based HCOs are better placed to foster collaborative relationships between health providers and patients. This is because knowledge enables HCO management to frame necessary health reform policies that are informed and aware of the dynamic social characteristics of their patients. Strategic management in health reform implementation on HCO management provides useful insights on how to achieve the overall objective health care reforms implementation. This objective lies in the need to achieve universal access and delivery of health care services to an entire target population. The most effective way of ensuring that this objective is realized, the cost of health care must be affordable to the target population. This is because cost of health care is the major impediment to access and delivery of quality health care services. Strategic management facilitates the achievement of these objectives by providing appropriate interpretive capabilities to health reform implementation policies. This is done through the development of structures that facilitate the broadening of perspectives on organizational attributes that advance and promote reduction of cost (Campbell, 2008). Strategic management promotes staff capabilities by facilitating the creation of a senior management team that holds the responsibility of establishing and encouraging a work ethic culture founded and based on competence in service delivery. Strategic management business practices that when applied to HCO management it promotes effective and effective organizational design that maximizes productivity. Implementation of incentive structures promotes loyalty and boosts the morale of health service providers further enhancing a HCO’s capabilities in its health care activities. Strategic management in health reform implementation on HCO management enables these entities to exploit and utilize opportunities and maneuver through bottlenecks that arise from government regulations. This approach to management enables HCOs to operate effectively and efficiently in government regulatory environment by conforming an organization’s practices. Through this, a HCO is able to continue operating at its optimum capacity and capabilities, which enable them to navigate through tough regulations that restrict their capabilities. Through strategic management, government regulations can be exploited to give HCOs operational advantages instead of these regulations becoming impediments. This can be accomplished by changing the practice and operational framework within a HCO to optimize their activities within these regulations. In line with various government regulations with regard to special interest groups, some HCOs are placed at a disadvantage because they lack sound managerial practices. This is in the sense that government regulations impose conditions on HCO to offer special interest groups unique health care services at subsidized costs, which are not incentivized by the government. Application of strategic management practices in such situations provides a HCO with the ability to cope with such requirements in a manner that is not detrimental to the organization’s objectives. Strategic management during health care reform implementation in HCOs helps them diversify with the ever-changing joint commission on accreditation of healthcare organizations (JCHO) requirements. HCOs can immensely benefit from strategic management practices in the health care industry that is characterized by consistent health care reforms due to the dynamic nature of the sector. This approach in management equips HCOs with a variety of superior and beneficial options in their health care service delivery. The ability to diversify operational practices in the ever-changing health care industry is bolstered by the application of strategic management approaches. It is a notable necessity for HCOs to adopt strategic management approaches in order to survive and excel in the tightly competitive health care industry. Other management approaches that exist in the health care industry should not be abolished all together in favor of strategic approaches. The best strategy to ensure that the best managerial practices are entrenched in the health care industry is to integrate the positive attributes of existing approaches. Another strategy that can be adopted to implement this favored approach is to integrate the existing strategies with the key aspects of strategic management. This guarantees that all the positive aspects of either managerial approach are maintained within the mainstream HCO management methodologies. The universal application of strategic management approaches during health care reforms implementation in HCOs would significantly increase the overall quality of health care service provision. This is because the approach ensures that a HCO is always operating at its maximum capacity and capabilities with regard to the prevailing circumstances. This approach has the potential to ensure the sustainability of competent health care service delivery because it facilitates entrenchment of a work ethic that is based on the culture dynamism both in practice and in principle. Strategic management approaches in health care HCOs anticipate changes making them more prepared to cope with changes in protocol and practice. Through this approach, HCOs are able to adopt more efficiently and effectively which enhances collaboration and cooperation within and without their organizational structure. Reference Campbell, R. J. (2008). Change Management in Health Care. PubMed. Read More