MBA Healthcare Management Assignment Sample

Introduction

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This report is based on healthcare management around the world. The healthcare department s is facing a problem of shortage of workforce due to several reasons all over the world.  WHO estimates a shortfall of 18 million staff by 2030. It has a direct impact on the well-being of staff, patient care, healthcare roles, and so on. It will also have multiple impacts on economic development, population health, training, and education.

In this report, the current situation of the currencies will be explored in terms of the shortage of staff. The challenges & opportunities will also be identified for the healthcare workers all over the world. Further, leadership practices will be identified with the strategies to overcome all the challenges and issues.

Background

World Health Organization estimates a predictable deficit of 18 million health workers by 2030, typically in low and lower-middle-income countries (Britnell, 2019). The Healthcare Department has been facing many challenges due to the shortage of skilled healthcare workforce. However, countries at all levels of socio-economic development face fluctuating degrees, and problems in the employment schooling, retention, and performance of their workforce. 

Several challenges have been faced by the healthcare workers such as psychological distress, social stigmatization, higher workload, lack of incentives, proper management during the service, and absence of coordination (OECD, 2020). 

The health care workforce faced some issues like insufficient education and non-availability of training to upgrade the skills of the workforce, excess salaries, supplies, & transportation, lack of infrastructure, and unsafe working conditions.

Challenges for health workforces

• Inappropriate quality & quantity of existing health workforce: The health care workforce facing challenges of a limited staff. This is why the healthcare workforce's crises have been projected to be increased by 2030. The countries are facing high unemployment rates within the healthcare sector. 
• Education is one of the challenges faced by the healthcare workforce. It has been identified that some countries have been facing a shortage of resources and do not have a large pool of high advances to provide nursing and medicals schools. Many countries are also dealing with the issues of deficiency in educational infrastructure to train health care workers with adequate skills (Zhou et al., 2021).
• HIV/AIDS is another challenge for the health care workforce that increases their workload. An increase in the workload results in rises in sick leaves. 
• Human resources are influenced by a range of political, social, and economic factors. The human resource for health is not just fulfilled by health needs; it requires wages & working conditions related to the other occupation (Abbas, 2021). 

Opportunities for improving the health workforce

Several opportunities can be used to improve the situation of the health workforce crisis. Organizations have published sets of documents that provide policies & procedures related to health care workforce crisis (Keskinocak & Savva, 2020). WHO has revealed some code of policies that enables them to improve the situation all over the world (World Health Organisation, 2020)? Some key elements have been recognized with the code of practice such as protecting the health workforce, partnership & sympathy of benefits, nursing of worldwide health worker migration flows, and ethical & fair recruitment.

Present situation

The description of some countries will be explained below with the reason for the health care workforce crisis in a particular country.

United Kingdom

In the country UK, the healthcare department has been facing an extending staffing crisis with the number of vacant positions across health services rising to 110,192. The shortage of staff includes 8158 doctors and 39652 nurses, according to the current data for health service vacancies (Pandey et al., 2020). The healthcare workforce challenges now present a greater threat to health services in the UK. Based on the current analysis the country has projected the gap between staff needed and the available workers could reach 250000 by 2030. The shortage of staff is due to several factors such as restraining migration policies, low level of satisfaction leading to leaving the jobs, poor workforce planning, and so on (Robinson et al., 2021).

Figure 1: Reasons for shortage of workforce in the UK

United States

The supply of healthcare specialists is predictable to reach 65 million, leaving a lack of 15 million worldwide. The health care industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors in the US accounting for 14% of all US workers (Stoicea et al., 2019). The shortage of workforce in the US is due to the 8 major problems in the healthcare system such as lack of transparency, lack of insurance coverage, poor amenable death rates, difficulty finding a good doctor, high costs of care, and shortage of nursing & physician.

India

In India, the healthcare department has faced challenges that result in a shortage of workforce such as lack of mentoring, lack of professional development, and training, no advancement opportunities, poor organizational culture, and inadequate wages & salaries (Pal et al., 2019). In the rural and urban areas, it has been identified that there is a lack of grave healthcare infrastructure in government health facilities.

Healthcare workforce Methodology

The best methodology to assess the healthcare workforce issues is to do effective planning. Healthcare workforce planning is a process that involves the stakeholders in measuring needs for change and approaches to achieve it effectively. The government of a particular country must analyze the shortage of staff and accordingly, they must do planning for the same (Willis, Cave & Kunc, 2018). Healthcare workforce planning will also help them to identify the reasons for the lack of staff in the healthcare department. 

Measures to improve the healthcare workforce 

The government over the world should take the necessary step to improve the situation of the healthcare workforce. They should provide training and development and also educational facilities. Some of the strategies or measures that can be used to improve the healthcare workforce include:

• Consolidating governance frameworks: Strengthening the government framework is one of the measures which can be applied by the countries. This framework will help the countries to guide medical education, international exchange of medical services, health employment, innovative partnership, and migration of health workers.
  

• Connecting technology: In the healthcare industry, the use of technologies has been increasing at a very fast pace. It is the fast-tracking industry of the use of e-learning techniques such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and empowering health workers (Agarwal et al., 2019). The use of technologies is one of the major advantages with which the government can reduce the shortage of staff. It will help them to provide all the facilities that lead to motivation among the workers.

• Emerging new care models: To manage the facilities to reduce workload from the staff, new care models should be developed with a hub & spoke arrangement of assets, community-based, integrated healthcare, and workforce training to provide high-quality services. This strategy will not just remove the unnecessary visits but also results in better health care for patients.

• Creating a supportable & gender stable workforce: According to the World Health Organization statistics, worldwide only 30% of the doctors are females and more than 70% of nurses are females. This trend has also been seen in India, where the majority of the workforce including nurses and doctors are female. So, the government needs to take proactive steps to create a balanced healthcare workforce that must address the issue of gender inequality.

Leadership practices

Transformational and democratic leadership styles must be used to encourage the healthcare workforce to do their best in the organization. They must motivate the team members while recognizing their efforts (Figueroa et al., 2019). In the healthcare industry, the department must apply some leadership practices to improve the workforce problems. Such as:

• Practise transparency
• Encourage employees
• Give real-time feedback
• Take chances on the people

Conclusion

It has been concluded that the health care management crisis has been increasing all over the world. This is due to the issues with some of the factors that force the employees to leave their job. Such forces include improper facilities, heavy workload, inadequate training and development, lack of transparency & coordination, and fluctuating degrees. These are some of the factors that have been identified due to which the healthcare industry faces a shortage of workforce globally. Education is one of the challenges faced by the healthcare industry which needs to be updated according to the market situations. It has been identified some countries are also facing a huge crisis in healthcare management such as the US, the UK, and India. Some measures have been identified that can be applied globally like connecting technology, emerging new talents, creating a supportable & gender stable workforce, consolidating governance frameworks, and so on.