HCMG 101 : Health Economics and Comparative Health Systems

Introduction:

The health statistics of New South Wales has indicated the growing burden of disease on the public sector of NSW. Increase in the hospital visits due to the increase in the poor health condition has been found to be 672000. Increase in the triage category or cases of immediate life threatening has been increased by 10% (Aubusson, 2018). Such condition has created excessive pressure on the emergency department of the health care centre, thus has increased the pressure of health department of NSW government. It has been found that, lack of information about the health care reforms and lack of correlation between the information processes is one of the main factor that restricts the general population in order to access the adequate health service. Demand for the improvement in the health system has been increased and increase in the expectations of the health care workforce has been found (McMullen et al., 2011). It has been found that utilizing the process of electronic communication and information system could help to reduce the issue of lack of information and correlation regarding the health reforms (McLean et al., 2013). With increasing information about health system the access to the adequate health service will increase, thus it could reduce the burden of disease and pressure of NSW government effectively. In this regards the NSW government has taken effective strategies to promote e-health and digitalization of health system (health.nsw.gov.au, 2018). The purpose of the report is to evaluate the strategies. The following paper will provide a brief discussion including positive factors of the strategies, limitations, gaps and recommendations for addressing the gaps.

e-Health priorities:

Positive factors of e-health strategy:

There are many positive factors of the strategies provided by the NSW government for enabling e-health, for example, digitalization of health care system. Digitalization includes using electronic medical record to facilitate the clinicians to order medical tests and reports digitally, picture achieving communication to allow the clinicians to get report and images within 24 hours, HealtheNet to correlate the records of the hospital with the National e-health record and e-blue book to develop the care plan and improve the quality of care. Such changes would help to improve the quality of care, reduce the time in accessing report to start treatment, documentation of patient’s health and develop patient centred care. The investment in the health infrastructure would help to increase community health and outpatient care, service monitoring process, electronic medication management process, keep clinical information, deliver health service in rural areas and strengthen the process of e-governance (health.nsw.gov.au, 2018). The digital innovation would help the practitioners to incorporating best practice in the clinics (Lee, McCullough & Town, 2013).

Limitations:

Beside the improvement in the information and communication process and development of infrastructure to improve the facility and access of health service, it is important to focus on the economic impact of the strategies and the limitations as well. Most of the healthcare staffs are trained in the traditional process, thus it is important to train the staffs regarding the use of digital infrastructure. Such process is time consuming and some staffs may face difficulties in adapting such technologies (Safdari, Ghazisaeidi & Jebraeily, 2015). On the other hand, in the rural areas, due to lack of education and employment, economic condition is not adequate to accept the technology. It may be difficult to access such technology in remote areas (Popescu, 2014). Such limitations could affect the implementation of the strategy of enabling ehealth.

Gap in the strategy:

The NSW government has introduced the strategies with high expectation of development of health system and meet the increasing demands of the population regarding the health service. However, there was no indication of health cost in the strategies. The strategy of NSW government has promised to improve the technology to develop more effective service but, did not mention about the training process for the staffs. On the other hand there was no specific indication of operational cost such as investment in IT, marketing, installation, management, back office and cost to the stakeholders (health.nsw.gov.au, 2018). Thus, it is important to prepare proper economic evaluation of the strategy in order to understand the whether digitalization of health system overvaluing the cost and undervaluing the benefits.

Recommendation:

In order to implement the strategy of NSW government regarding the digitalization it is important to address the gaps and limitations in an effective manner with proper recommendations. Firstly, the NSW government need to develop a training plan for the health care workforce in order to help them to adapt the new technologies in an effective manner. It would help the staffs to understand the proper way of utilizing the technology in order to provide quality service while consuming less time (Lee, McCullough & Town, 2013). Secondly, it is important to provide information regarding the benefits of digitalization in the remote areas. In this regards the government need to resolve the issue of education and unemployment, so that the people in the rural area could access the technology and the health service could reach to them to provide adequate service (Gabriel et al., 2014). Third, the government need to prepare proper budget plan including the expenditure of IT, management, installation charge, back office and stakeholders. Improving the infrastructure through the improvement in technology. It would help to evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy in the means of economic impact and analyse the robustness of the strategy (Palmer, Byford & Raftery, 1999). With the improvement in the infrastructure and technology the health cost will increase, thus the government need to manage the health cost so that individual could afford the health service in order to improve their health condition (Ogutu, 2016).

Conclusion:

From the above discussion it can be said that, the idea of digitalization of health system is beneficial as it could help to improve the quality of service through improved technology. Such improvement would help to reduce difficulties in time consuming process such as test, reports, documentation, appointment and others. On the other hand digitalization would help the health service to reach the remote area in order to serve the people that lack adequate health service. However, there are some limitations and gaps in the strategies such as lack of indication about health cost, lack of information about training of the staffs and lack of idea regarding digitalization in remote area. Such limitations could affect the implementation of ehealth strategy. However, with the recommendations provided in the discussion could help to address such limitations effectively.

References:

Aubusson, K. (2018). NSW budget 2016: Health system burden may be underestimated, says AMA NSW. Retrieved from https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/nsw-budget-2016-health-system-burden-may-be-underestimated-says-ama-nsw-20160620-gpnck6.html

Gabriel, M. H., Jones, E. B., Samy, L., & King, J. (2014). Progress and challenges: implementation and use of health information technology among critical-access hospitals. Health Affairs, 33(7), 1262-1270.

health.nsw.gov.au (2018). Retrieved from https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/statehealthplan/Publications/NSW-State-Health-Plan-Towards-2021.pdf

Lee, J., McCullough, J. S., & Town, R. J. (2013). The impact of health information technology on hospital productivity. The RAND Journal of Economics, 44(3), 545-568.

McLean, S., Sheikh, A., Cresswell, K., Nurmatov, U., Mukherjee, M., Hemmi, A., & Pagliari, C. (2013). The impact of telehealthcare on the quality and safety of care: a systematic overview. PloS one, 8(8), e71238.

McMullen, C. K., Ash, J. S., Sittig, D. F., Bunce, A., Guappone, K., Dykstra, R., ... & Wright, A. (2011). Rapid assessment of clinical information systems in the healthcare setting. Methods of information in medicine, 50(04), 299-307.

Ogutu, E. O. (2016). Corporate Failure and the Role of Governance: The Parmalat Scandal. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, 11(3), 2747-2754.

Palmer, S., Byford, S., & Raftery, J. (1999). Economics notes: types of economic evaluation. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 318(7194), 1349.

Popescu, G. H. (2014). The economic implications of ehealth and mhealth technologies. American Journal of Medical Research, 1(2), 31-37.

Safdari, R., Ghazisaeidi, M., & Jebraeily, M. (2015). Electronic health records: Critical success factors in implementation. Acta Informatica Medica, 23(2), 102.