Factors Influencing Healthcare Facility Planning
Introduction:
The primary factors that are influencing the planning and development of healthcare facilities around the world are governmental policies, patient advocacy and overgrowing competition to capture the healthcare market. Each healthcare facility is concerned about implementation of newer technologies and modified practices so that maximum patients can be treated within the facility without any management related issues. As, there are several unpredictable fiscal crunches that a healthcare facility faces, it is important to plan the healthcare processes using decision tools and hospital resource planning. The primary aim of this literature review is to determine the planning and framework while setting up a healthcare facility over-seas. Further, in this context, the research also focuses on the type of service (outpatient or inpatient for the benefit if the local population), affordability of care, type of specialist clinics so that a holistic idea of healthcare facility planning and development can be generated.
Reviewing the literature:
As the global healthcare sector is expanding, it has become the primary source of generating revenues and creating employment for the upcoming decades. However, it is always difficult to determine the need of one region as healthcare related needs vary from place to place. In this purpose, to understand the needs and different barriers present in healthcare planning around the world, research article of Garcia-Subirats et al. (2014) should be discussed. To understand the differences of healthcare system, the researchers conducted a cross sectional study between two countries Columbia and Brazil. The researchers finalized six districts across these two countries and then conducted a survey among the population so that the need of the people regarding healthcare can be identified. These populations were selected as these were located in highly dense areas and comprised of individuals with low or medium to low socioeconomic status. They also had different geographical locations and different healthcare related needs. It is important to note here that, the local language used by the common people always plays a crucial role while planning to establish a health care organization overseas. It is important to recruit professionals who would be able to communicate efficiently with the local patients, so as to ensure efficient service delivery (El-Amouri et al., 2014). Research studies reveal that the cultural background and ethnicity of patients also play a major role in seeking medical facilities (Virdun et al., 2013). Hence, medical health organizations setting up services abroad must make sure that the health care professionals at all levels, ranging from the administration level to the nursing professionals and physicians based at different departments are trained in cultural competency. With respect to setting up healthcare organizations for offering medical health facilities to a community of indigenous population, it is vital to include only cultural competent professionals (Virdun et al., 2013). Additionally, evidences also suggest that the establishment of a healthcare organization is also dependent upon the thorough comparison of the inpatient and outpatient databases (Kim et al., 2013). Inpatient refers to the patients who need to at least stay over for a night for the purpose of medical treatment. On the contrary outpatient refers to the patients whose treatment procedure does not require an over-night stay at the hospital (Berry et al., 2013). Additionally, it is also crucial to take into consideration the statistics of the occurrence of any serious epidemic or probability of the development of any pandemic in the concerned population (Mosley et al., 2017). Factors such as the availability of old-age care and chronic illness management care schemes must also be considered before proceeding with the establishment of the healthcare organization overseas (Anhang Prince et al., 2014). Evidences also reveal another primary aspect that must not be overlooked while progressing with the idea of setting up a healthcare organization abroad, is the thorough consideration of licensing and permit. It is advised that an enterprise while planning to expand the business operations to a foreign land must proceed with the payment of an expensive permit to another home-based enterprise in the country where the company would like to expand the business operations (Neumann et al., 2016). This ensures that a major proportion of the profit outcome remains in the home-country and the problems associated with the cancellation of license can also be avoided to the maximum. In addition to this, another pivotal factor that must be considered while planning to set up a healthcare organization in a foreign country consists of a thorough evaluation of the medical and health schemes and policies available in the country to serve the target audience of the elderly as well as the public in general (Denton, 2013). This also comprises of an evaluation of the vaccination schemes available and at the same time correlating with the evidence furnished by the documents of the infectious diseases introducing newer immunization schemes that in turn also serve the purpose of innovative marketing strategy and help in increasing the target audience for service delivery (Cohen et al., 2014). Research papers reveal that before entering an international market, an enterprise should thoroughly consider the national security of the country in terms of threats posed on account of war and violence that might affect the business of the organization drastically. In addition, evidences also reveal that a market survey in terms of analyzing the international market in terms of currency inflation and insecurity should also be considered on a mandatory basis so as to ensure successful development of the planning strategy in terms of the healthcare organization (Bates et al., 2014). A complete evaluation of the environmental factors in order to address the issues associated with pharmaceutical storage and pharmaceutical and biological waste disposal should also be done in an efficient manner so as to avoid risks related to biomedical hazard leakage (Mmereki et al., 2017). Evaluation in terms of the categorization of customers based on their socio-economic status must be done so as to accordingly set up services which can be availed by the patients belonging to diverse economic groups.
Cultural Competency in Healthcare Professionals
As is evident from the literature review, a major focus has been given on the social, cultural and economic background of the population before planning and entering the international market, however a gap has been evident from the consideration of the environmental risk factors such as occurrence of natural disasters and pollution emission control regulation. Gap in terms of consideration of existing political and legislative factor is also seen in the literature review. No specific evidences regarding the implementation of family care program or community based practice have been mentioned in the literatures. At the same time, the papers do not focus on the aspect of implementation of an emergency unit so as to handle the emergency and critical cases related to accident and serious injury. Also, the papers lack the presentation of a refined idea about the incorporation of ideas pertaining to genetic screening and pregnancy complications in the considered population. Additionally, it must be stated that papers are restricted to the idea of expansion of business operations in developing countries. The review lacks a clear definition about the expansion in a developed country. The factors such as market competition, rivalry and business innovation have not been addressed which are known as vital components to expand a market in a developed country.
Conclusion:
Therefore on account of the vivid literature review presented above, it can be stated that setting up a healthcare organization overseas requires scrutinizing and evaluating a number of factors. Factors in terms of social, socio-economical, legal and biomedical factors must be thoroughly examined before progressing with a health care project overseas. A critical demographical study in terms of population strength, the birth rate, the mortality rate, the average old age and the incidences of still birth can help in the proper implementation of policies to support the medical needs of the patient. In addition to the above said factors the statistics and figures pertaining to the incidence of inpatient and outpatient services can help in introducing a project in a foreign nation. Also, it must be stated that prior to the introduction of a project in a foreign nation, it is important to perform a strategic audit so as to obtain a clear rational behind the expansion of the business operations internationally. On successfully considering each of the factors the planning and management of an international project has been reported to be a successful one.
References:
Anhang Price, R., Elliott, M. N., Zaslavsky, A. M., Hays, R. D., Lehrman, W. G., Rybowski, L., … & Cleary, P. D. (2014). Examining the role of patient experience surveys in measuring health care quality. Medical Care Research and Review, 71(5), 522-554.
Bates, D. W., Saria, S., Ohno-Machado, L., Shah, A., & Escobar, G. (2014). Big data in health care: using analytics to identify and manage high-risk and high-cost patients. Health Affairs, 33(7), 1123-1131.
Berry, L. L., Rock, B. L., Houskamp, B. S., Brueggeman, J., & Tucker, L. (2013, February). Care coordination for patients with complex health profiles in inpatient and outpatient settings. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 88, No. 2, pp. 184-194). Elsevier.
Cohen, I. G., Amarasingham, R., Shah, A., Xie, B., & Lo, B. (2014). The legal and ethical concerns that arise from using complex predictive analytics in health care. Health affairs, 33(7), 1139-1147.
Cummings, N. A. (2016). Behavioral health in primary care: Dollars and sense. In Psyche’s Prophet (pp. 141-155). Routledge.
Denton, B. T. (2013). Handbook of healthcare operations management. New York: Springer, 10, 978-982.
El Amouri, S., & O’Neill, S. (2014). Leadership style and culturally competent care: Nurse leaders’ views of their practice in the multicultural care settings of the United Arab Emirates. Contemporary nurse, 48(2), 135-149.
Garcia-Subirats, I., Vargas, I., Mogollón-Pérez, A. S., De Paepe, P., da Silva, M. R. F., Unger, J. P., & Vázquez, M. L. (2014). Barriers in access to healthcare in countries with different health systems. A cross-sectional study in municipalities of central Colombia and north-eastern Brazil. Social Science & Medicine, 106, 204-213.
Kim, J. Y., Farmer, P., & Porter, M. E. (2013). Redefining global health-care delivery. The Lancet, 382(9897), 1060-1069.
Mmereki, D., Baldwin, A., Li, B., & Liu, M. (2017). Healthcare waste management in Botswana: storage, collection, treatment and disposal system. Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management, 19(1), 351-365.
Moseley III, G. B. (2017). Managing health care business strategy. Jones & Bartlett Learning, pp 87-89
Neumann, P. J., Sanders, G. D., Russell, L. B., Siegel, J. E., & Ganiats, T. G. (Eds.). (2016). Cost-effectiveness in health and medicine. Oxford University Press.
Virdun, C., Gray, J., Sherwood, J., Power, T., Phillips, A., Parker, N., & Jackson, D. (2013). Working together to make Indigenous health care curricula everybody’s business: A graduate attribute teaching innovation report. Contemporary Nurse, 46(1), 97-104.
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