Human Resource Planning for Healthcare

The WHO defines HRH (Human resource for health) planning as "the process of estimating the number of persons & the kinds of knowledge, skills, & attitudes they need to achieve predetermined health targets & ultimately health status objectives".

HR planning is a dynamic process, involves 3 stages; stocktaking, forecasting, & designing temporary workforce. In the first stage of stocktaking, recruitment & selection of key types of employees align with strategic business plan to achieve specific targets. The second stage of forecasting is subdivided into two phases, forecasting future people needs (demand forecasting) & forecasting availability of people (supply forecasting). The third & final phase involves flexible strategy to recruit temporary employees as per need assessment & cost-effective benefits.

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1. Stock-taking: - The principle is to identify how many people are needed at every level of the organization to achieve business objectives- in line with overall strategic plans - & what kind of knowledge, skills, abilities & other characteristics these people need.

Human Resource Planning for Healthcare

The optimal staffing of modern health services requires many different types of staff. These include; -

1. Clinical workers - doctors & nurses.

2. Technical staff for diagnostic services, such as laboratory & radiology, pharmacy staff.

3. Environment health workers, such as health inspectors.

4. Preventive & promotive staff, such as community health workers, administrative staff, etc.

In a healthcare organization, traditional quantitative approach are used to make enumerative judgments based on subjective managers prediction to allocate certain budgets for employee's payroll expenditure & need assessment of key employee potentiating responsive to organizational system & design. Resource allocations are best executed with the help of activity based cost management, that controls cost & labor required for specific job/event & reduce wastage.

For example: Comparative rates of healthcare activity: -

Inpatient care bed days per capita

Acute care bed days per capita

Acute care staff ratio - staff per bed

Acute care nurses ratio - staff per bed

Inpatient admissions per 1000 population

Acute care admissions per 1000 population

Doctors consultation's per capita.

The types of health staff in a particular country are dictated by the kinds of health services provided & level of technology available.

For example: -

Nature of health organization: primary, secondary, & tertiary.

Types of sector: public, private, non-profit funded organization.

Infrastructure: size of the hospital (200 beds, 400 beds, 1000 beds).

General (multispecialty) or specific care providers (cardiovascular, cancer).

2. Forecasting: -

Demand forecasting: - Planning for the medical workforce is complex & determined by relatively mechanistic estimates of demand for medical care. Dr. Thomas L. Hall (1991) proposed 5 generic methods for estimating demand for health care, such as

1. Personnel to population ratio method: - This method calculates ratio of number of health

Personnel as compared with the population count. However, with inappropriate data available, it has serious limitations, such as it is only applicable with acceptable health conditions, a stable health sector, & a limited capacity for planning.

2. The health-needs method: -This method requires & translates expert opinion about people's health needs to staff requirements. Health needs are derived from the determination of disease specific mortality & morbidity rates. The staff requirements are evaluated from the norms for the number, kind, frequency, & quality of services,& staffing standards that convert the services into time requirements by a certain category of health workers to perform the services. This method initiates the need for sophisticated data system & survey capabilities, & a high level of planning expertise which are not readily available.

3. The service -demands method: -This method accounts the numbers & kinds of health services people will use at an anticipated cost of obtaining them, rather than their professionally determined need for such services. This specifically provides data about economical regression pertaining to utilization of private healthcare sector as compared to government funded health sector.

4. The managed healthcare system's method: - The managed health care system's entails a known client population who would have reasonably good access to health amenities. But flexible socio-political trends & economical recession influence healthcare reform policies.

Supply forecasting: -

Forecasting HR supply involves using information from the internal & external labor market. The calculation of staff turnover & workforce stability indices measures internal supply for HR Planning. External labor market gives detailed spectrum on tightness of supply, demographic factors, & social/geographic aspects.

Internal supply: - The evaluation of the gross number of people needed for a specific job & arrange for other provisions of HR processes, such as training & developmental programs, transfer & promotion policies, retirement, career planning, & others have crucial importance in maintaining constant supply of HR in an organization.

1. Stock & flow model: - This model follow the employee's path through the organization over time, & attempt to predict how many employees are needed & in which part of the organization.

a)Wastage analysis; - This analysis refers to the rate at which people leave the organization, or represents the turnover index.

The number of people leaving in a specific period

Wastage analysis= x 100

The average number employed in the same period

b) Stability analysis ( Bowey, 1974): - This method is useful in analyzing the extent of wastage in terms of length of service.

Total length of service of manpower employed at the time of analysis

Stability analysis=x 100

Total possible length of service had there been no manpower wastage

2. Replacement Charts: - Replacement chart is a list of employee's for promotion, selected upon the opinions & recommendations of higher ranking people ( Mello, 2005). Some replacement charts are more systematic showing skills, abilities, competences, & experience levels of an employee.

3. Succession Planning: - An aging workforce & an emerging "Baby boom" retirement waves are driving the need for new management process known as succession planning that involves analyzing & forecasting the talent potentials to execute business strategy.

Will Powley,senior consulting manager for GE Healthcare's performance solutions group says, that the first step in effective succession planning is a quarterly talent review that begins with an examination of the hospital or health system's organizational chart.

In a 2008 White Paper on succession planning, GE Healthcare identified a few best practices for healthcare for succession planning:

1. Identify & develop talent at all levels

2. Assess top performer's talent rigorously & repeatedly

3. Link talent management closely with external recruiting

4. Keep senior management actively involved

5. Emphasize on-the-job leadership & customized employee development

6. Create systematic talent reviews & follow-up plans

7. Maintain dialogue with potential future leaders.

External supply: - HR managers use outside information, such as statistics concerning the labor market from the organization & external labor market, in other words external & internal statistics.

External statistics: - Graduate profile

Unemployment rates

Skill levels

Age profile

Graduate profile: - There is substantial public sector regulation of all health care markets, & entry to labor market is highly constrained by licensing & professional regulations.

Unemployment rates: - There is lack of economic principles, the role of incentives is largely ignored & supply elasticity in the labor market is mostly unknown & poorly researched.

Skill levels: - Higher education (specialization & super-specialization) are proportionally restricted to limited seats of admission governed by medical regulatory bodies.

Age profile: - The organizational charts of recruitment gives details of rates of recruitment, retention, return & early retirement of employee's, which helps to enumerate future vacancy rates, shortages, & need for replacement.

Internal statistics: - Demographic profile

Geographic distribution

Demographic profile: - Demographic changes (e.g. the number of young people entering the labor force) affect the external supply of labor. Age composition of workforce will force to review recruitment policies. The trend of increasing proportion of women in employment has lead to progressive development of both organization & country.

Geographic distribution: - The attraction of workforce to urban areas are influence by following reasons; employment opportunity, access to facilities - transportation & technology, & others.

3. Temporary workforce planning: -

Herer & Harel (1998) classifies temporary workers as: temporary employee's, contract employees, consultants, leased employees, & outsourcing.

High social costs has initiated work sharing strategy which are flexible & provides more benefits, such as

1. Part- time temporary workers numbers & hours can be adapted easily with low maintenance cost to meet organizational needs,

2. Employees possessing appropriate/ specialized skills benefits functional areas within & outside the organization.

3. No responsibility for exclusive benefit enrollments, such as job security, pension plan, insurance coverage, etc.

In today's work environment, outsourcing can be added as a temporary worker planning technique. Outsourcing requirement is assessed & evaluated on cost & benefit decision. Ambulatory services, pathological or diagnostic testing services, laundry, catering, billing, medical transcription, & others are most commonly outsourcing services promoted in healthcare organization.

Human Resource Planning for Healthcare

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Healthcare - Health Insurance Providers Review - Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company

Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company is a name brand within healthcare. This review of health insurance providers will highlight the changing directions in healthcare that Mutual of Omaha has taken.

Established in 1909 in Nebraska, Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company has remained one of the larger providers of healthcare. There are three associated subsidiary providers in this carrier group. Since its inception in 1970, United of Omaha has carried the main thrust of the life insurance products sold. Other business comes from Companion Life Insurance Co in New York, along with United World Life Insurance Company, formerly known as United World Insurance Co. While health and life insurance is the primarily focus, the parent company is also involved in banking, real estate development, and the sale of Mutual Funds.

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Now Mutual of Omaha has sprouted into a sort of a three-headed creature, with each of these head snipping at the other's business. Formerly there was only one many focus on where to obtain health insurance business. Having over 150 offices, the company had exclusive training facilities at its home office facility. When you think of healthcare, you tend to think of medical insurance. Disability insurance is a form of healthcare, and this is where for many years the company tried to make its mark. Agents were trained to sell disability coverage first, hospitalization and health supplement next, and then life insurance through United of Omaha last.

Their website mentions that when you have a sales career at Mutual of Omaha you have more than just a job. My analysis shows that the retention of healthcare representatives is not much higher now then when I was a unit sales manager with them. However, there are way fewer career sales offices available today. The company is licensed to sell in 50 states, with few restrictions. Their life and annuity sales have remained consistent the last few years. Meanwhile, rapid growth is show in accident and health insurance premiums being collected.

The reason for tremendous growth in this area can be pinpointed opening up the distribution of its healthcare products to independent non-company affiliated brokers. Along with this, they are known for generous commission payouts and one to the top rated Medicare Supplement policies. This has caused a problem for a lot of 100 year old companies, that Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company has handled better than almost all the rest. This is where you have in house affiliated representatives competing with outside brokers for the same product selling with different commission rates.

I am appalled however at Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company to throw its hat in the ring of trying to straightforwardly entice consumers to buy direct from the insurer. This takes business away from its agents, and from the independent brokers. They tell an online prospective client that buying insurance online has never been more affordable or easier. Nevertheless, the insurer is extremely savvy and profit orientated. There are only four policies offered direct. They are whole life, children's life insurance, accidental death, and cancer insurance. The last three are some of the most profitable policies that they sell.

Looking at their asset to liability ratio for paying life and health claims, the current situation looks steady, with only minor variation range. There are companies that may be financially rated slightly higher. In this review, I would rate Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company, even above many of them. The reason is strong company management, along with a smooth melding of captive representative offices and brokerage operations.

They should just quit being a direct internet provider of insurance directly to consumers. Plus there is no reason for them to not put up individual websites for United of Omaha, Companion Life Insurance Company, and World Life Insurance Company. This is a cheap, beneficial way to help policyholders locate these other companies.. Hope someone in Omaha is listening.

Healthcare - Health Insurance Providers Review - Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company

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Health Employment - The Driving Force Behind the History of Healthcare

Public healthcare systems are concerned with medical threats to the community, regional and national populations that it is responsible for. There are two distinct characteristics of public healthcare, being a focus on preventative versus curative aspects of health while dealing with nationwide medical concerns rather than individual level health issues.

The focus of a public healthcare intervention is to prevent rather than treat a disease through surveillance of cases and the promotion of healthy behaviours. Much of today's modern healthcare system has come about from health developments and interventions discovered and implemented during the early 1800's and industrial revolution for example. Such discoveries also created new health employment opportunities. Medical experts at the time had to contemplate some form of public system that could address general and pandemic health conditions of the population at large. New vaccines were also produced to treat disease and illness creating the need for health professionals to administer such procedures.

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During the twentieth century, the prevalence of infectious disease decreased and the focus of public healthcare turned towards chronic diseases, such as cancer and heart disease. Advancements in medical practice and knowledge had significant impacts on the increasing life expectancy of the general population of developing countries. The focus then turned to aspects such as safety policies, improved family planning and hygiene and what the modern health system is based upon, actions aimed at preventative measures to reduce the prevalence of disease and illness.

As the pressures of population increases are placing unforeseen stress upon the public healthcare system, there is an unprecedented demand for workers in the health employment industries. Additionally, as there are immense discrepancies in access to healthcare and public healthcare initiatives between developed and developing nations, the need for qualified health employment staff in many developing nations is ever increasing. Whether you desire to work in the latest medical facilities or assist in developing nations, those involved within the medical professions will always be required to fill the ever increasing amount of health employment vacancies.

Health Employment - The Driving Force Behind the History of Healthcare

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Digital Signage For Healthcare

Another one of those large industries that tends to be embracing the incorporation of interactive digital technology into the busy halls is the health care industry. One of the main reasons that digital signage for healthcare seems to be such an obvious solution is that the majority of people who walk into a hospital are stressed and/ or disoriented. Whether they are sick or injured themselves, visiting a loved one, or even just getting a routine checkup, there is plenty enough to worry about already.

Digital signs can be used in a variety of ways to guide them, offering a smooth transition into the everyday life of the hospital environment and making it an easier process for everyone.

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This can be done through digital bulletin boards or an interactive display that gives instructions using touch-tone technology. Of course, there will always be patients who are in such a bad state they have no time or focus to concentrate on something even this simple, and they will blaze right past, but leading the rest of the patient population with interactive technology frees up more of the staff to focus on those patients who need immediate attention.

Another great use of digital signs that works great in larger health care facilities are wayfinding displays. These are large interactive maps where visitors can quickly touch a finger to the destination they want to go and receive immediate directions.

They can also see where all the most important locations are--such as restrooms, cafeteria, emergency room, waiting room, x-ray, and ICU. Hospitals are often quite bland and repetitive in design, and many people find they get lost in even the smallest facilities, especially under considerable stress.

Of course, digital signage is not just beneficial to patients but helps the hospital staff in a variety of other ways as well. Everyone that works in the hospital is part of one huge team, and it takes effective management in order to keep that team functioning as one cohesive unit.

This requires good communication, and this is where digital signage for healthcare comes in. Signs can be use to make announcements, give instructions, and send out health alerts. They can also be used in cafeterias to display cafeteria menus for everyone to see or provide entertainment when it is needed most.

This is only the beginning, and if you think of the nature of health care technology, it should be obvious that digital signage will play an increasingly important role. How will this technology be used in the future to not only streamline processes but improve advanced methods of treatment?

Digital Signage For Healthcare

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Alternative & Complementary Therapies Meet Conventional Healthcare

The medical world is experiencing a shift in the way it treats health and disease. While alternative therapies were quickly dismissed by physicians as worthless or dangerous just a decade ago, alternative medicines are now beginning to earn mainstream attention. Physicians are beginning to realize that there is a relationship between a person's emotional, spiritual and mental state of mind and their physical health.

Many conventional doctors are beginning to integrate a holistic approach to their practice by addressing environmental, psychological and spiritual aspects of the patient. Biomedical, or modern-day medicine relies heavily upon curing disease through the use of chemically compounded pharmaceuticals. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) uses a more natural approach that includes herbal supplements, vitamins, acupuncture, chiropractic, nutrition, guided imagery, homeopathic treatment, prayer, chelation therapy, massage, biofeedback, music therapy, exercise and fitness, hypnosis and other mind-body techniques and energy modalities that work with the body's natural ability to heal itself. Years ago if a person was using CAM therapies, he or she might have been reluctant to tell their medical doctor about it for fear of being shamed or lectured about the dangers.

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Additionally, physicians had little knowledge then about the alternative therapies and supplements their patients were using. Fortunately things have changed and a number of doctors are referring patients to some of the more prominent and well-known forms of CAM therapies that they believe are useful or effective. In 1997, Harvard Medical School reported that more than one third of the U.S. population was currently using some type of CAM therapy. But, that was nine years ago. In 2001, The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine reported that almost 70% of the population has at least tried some sort of CAM therapy along with conventional medicine. That trend is on the rise and will continue to affect future healthcare delivery, making an even greater demand for CAM therapies. This means that conventional doctors must be educated in the use of these modalities in order to know what their patient's are talking about. Why do people seek alternative and complementary medical care? It is believed that CAM would improve health when used in combination with conventional medical treatments.

Many people try CAM when conventional medical treatments have not helped or are too expensive. Some people are just plain curious, and others try CAM because a conventional medical professional suggested it. Some health insurance policies now cover chiropractic and massage as part of patient care, and CAM courses are appearing in the curriculum as part of academic medical education. Hospitals such as St. Thomas in Nashville, Tennessee are affiliating with alternative health and fitness facilities such as the YMCA of Middle Tennessee to integrate the two practices. The change is occurring but not without opposition.

The FDA wants to regulate all over-the-counter medications including the herbs and homeopathic remedies. The FDA would like to place supplements under government control as "prescription only" products. The FDA is not concerned about people overdosing on Flintstones. It has more to do with the pharmaceutical industry being one of the country's biggest taxpayers and therefore one of the most influential lobbyists. It is up to those of us who use alternative modalities to protect our rights as citizens. It is the right of each individual to maintain a healthy body, and it is time for each of us to take responsibility and action -- for our own health and the sake of our children's -- by increasing our awareness, reading books and articles, researching and getting involved. The FDA needs to know where the people stand. Write to your Congressperson today.

Alternative & Complementary Therapies Meet Conventional Healthcare

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