Category: Health Care

NHS Locums and the Great Healthcare Debate

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The recent criticism of the increase in the amount spent on locum doctors by the NHS over the last two years and the subsequent speculation over whether or not patient care has suffered as a direct result has served to underline the importance of ensuring high standards in the medical recruitment industry.

Amid all the wrangling between unions, healthcare bosses, politicians and front-line staff, that most pertinent and worthy of questions “Was it worth it?” is perhaps the only line that can be drawn under the debate. The money has been spent. So what then of the services rendered?

With the spectre of healthcare cuts looming overhead, this climate of heightened scrutiny surrounding the use, and indeed, performance of locum doctors, nurses and other specialists is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. The merits of it are threefold. Firstly, an increased demand for the very best professionals and expertise.

Secondly, a thrust towards a more responsible, structured and consistent recruitment market. And thirdly, and most importantly, an assurance to patients that their healthcare providers are seeking top quality staffing solutions – both temporary and permanent – from top quality staffing providers.

The 19th Century American physician Oliver Wendall Holmes once wrote “Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust”. In the business of healthcare, these are words to be ignored at one’s peril. At its most extreme, in no other sector can a financial decision result so directly in a life/death defining outcome and this is the key reason why the debate over increased expenditure on locums has gathered such momentum. For healthcare providers in need of finding expert manpower, often at short notice, it ultimately boils down to placing trust in an agency that not only understands their needs but is also able to offer them the highest quality candidates available.

The NHS is facing a staffing shortage. The debate about increased expenditure on locums will continue, drawing ever more attention to their role in the system. Regardless of this, the bottom line for healthcare providers is that there are temporary posts that need filling. Do it right and you get a professional and flexible workforce. Do it wrong and it is not just reputations but lives that are placed on the line.

Healthcare IT Solutions A Win-Win for All Stakeholders

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Information technology (IT) has helped change the face of many industries. It is because of IT, that many organizations have had to face a strategic inflection point in their business cycle, for the better. Sure, the change was initially difficult but eventually IT has only proved to be an excellent solution to the many challenges that an organization faces.

When it comes to the field of healthcare, industry professionals are better off focusing on their core competency, rather than channel their energies to other functions of the organization in order to ensure completion of tasks. This is the reason why outsourcing of hospital IT infrastructure is taking place across the industry. There are immense benefits once this activity is outsourced, since the hospital administration can then dedicate its focus to the patient’s well being.

Healthcare IT solutions provide benefits like the application of industry best practices, control of operating costs, ease in coordination between various functions of the organization, eventually leading to superior customer service, etc. Healthcare IT provides valuable information on a real-time basis, and patient records can be viewed by the stakeholders with ease. Outsourcing of healthcare information technology will also help the organization have an effective IT strategy in place that is in alignment with organizational goals. Also, outsourcing of IT-related services makes a lot of business sense for the organization, since upfront investments in IT and the creation of IT infrastructure is an expensive undertaking.

Medical IT is beneficial for patients, too. Electronic Health Records, which is one of the technologies, ensures that patients can conveniently access their medical reports online, thus reducing paperwork. The same reports can be viewed by their doctor which helps them make quick decisions. This can come in handy, especially during emergency situations. In cases where a patient may have to see multiple specialists for a particular illness, each of them can view the same report, once they have access to view it.

Hence, the emergence of IT in healthcare is a boon for all the stakeholders and helps a healthcare organization achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the industry.

What Healthcare Professionals are Saying about Bloodless Surgery

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While some of the basic ideas and concepts constituting what is known today as bloodless medicine have been around for centuries, the idea of a set of medical and surgical techniques aimed specifically at eliminating the necessity of blood transfusions has only been around since the 1960s. The idea was spurred mainly by Jehovah’s Witnesses, who became outspoken about their opposition to blood transfusions in the beginning of the 20th century.

Physicians were initially skeptical about performing complex surgeries and operations without using blood transfusions. However, after decades of campaigning and even federal court cases, Witnesses won the right to be treated without blood transfusions.

The early practitioners of bloodless medicine worked almost exclusively with Jehovah’s Witnesses to perform bloodless surgery. In many cases, doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals noticed the results from bloodless operations were actually better than similar operations where a transfusion had been performed. Benefits included quicker recovery times and lower costs. Eventually, these physicians began publishing their results, noting the advantages to these bloodless procedures over traditional blood transfusions. They also explained these benefits to other physicians and encouraged them to adopt the practices with non-Witness patients.

After surgeons in New Orleans and Los Angeles gained attention for performing bloodless open heart surgeries (or “bloodless hearts”), the popularity of bloodless surgery techniques with physicians began to spread around the world. By the late 1970s, bloodless medicine was available at healthcare systems in the U.S., Canada, Europe and India.

Not long thereafter, the public began to take notice as well. Concerns about the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) led to people beginning to question where the source of donated blood used in transfusions was coming from. Fear over contracting AIDS through contaminated donor blood led to large numbers of non-Witness patients requesting bloodless surgeries.

Physicians have generally welcomed the increased demand for bloodless surgery in the modern medical climate. Bloodless surgeries have a number of specific advantages to both the patient and surgeon, as well as benefits to the hospital systems offering bloodless surgery. Because more than 50% of surgeries in the U.S. are pre-planned or elective surgeries, many doctors are actually encouraging their patients to consider blood transfusion alternatives.

Why do doctors and healthcare professionals like bloodless surgery methods? There are a number of specific reasons why a particular doctor or healthcare system might choose to offer bloodless medicine program. However, there are two huge advantages that benefit the doctor, the patient and the healthcare system.

1.) Bloodless Surgeries have fewer complications –

Fewer complications mean fewer post-surgery procedures and a quicker recovery time. This is obviously good for patients, but it is good for physicians as well. It frees up more of their time and lessens the likelihood that they could lose a patient in surgery.

Reform Means Planning for Healthcare System Wellness

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Wellness is not simply an absence of illness, it is an active process of becoming aware, planning for, and carrying out healthy choices that bring about positive change.

Understanding and maintaining wellness is critical in every one of our lives – and in the lives of the people we serve who are recovering from mental illnesses and substance use disorders.

As members of the behavioral health community, we must engage in the active process of becoming aware, planning for, and carrying on the hard work of healthcare system reform. This kind of healthcare system wellness is our responsibility. Federal healthcare reform legislation is a big step in the right direction. However, maintaining wellness is an ongoing process. In considering the wellness of our healthcare system there are several dimensions we as providers and consumers of healthcare services should be attending to. These dimensions of healthcare system wellness include funding, health information technology, service provision, quality improvement and research. Some examples of the planning and activities we can take part in.

Funding

– Reform the payment system to stop the promotion of paying for procedures and replacing it with payment based on the quality care.

– Aggressive reform of billing practices that stymie providers from making the necessary changes to create seamless healthcare services. Including funding for coordination of care, case management, transportation and allowing providers in every state to bill for more than one service in a day in the same clinic.

Health Information Technology

– The development of patient registries for the uniform collection of clinical and administrative data. Registries will allow for better monitoring and continuity of care while helping to make the business case for behavioral and primary care services integration

– Making sure that our electronic health records are compliant with Health Level Seven (HL7) international interoperability standards. Required by the US Department of Health and Human Services, these standards will enable electronic medical records to exchange, manage and share information between providers.

Service Provision

– Adoption of the healthcare home approach to care. This approach requires a bi-directional care provision which challenges the traditional thinking about how providers work with one another. Specialty mental health and primary care providers must reach out to one another and work in a coordinated fashion to provide disease management services for people with severe mental illness and/or substance use conditions.

– The implementation of wellness programming as a Medical Home standard of care for all people diagnosed with a severe mental illness and/or substance use condition.

– The expansion of peer-led wellness programming as an effective way to promote healthy living and care coordination.

Healthcare Management Is A Course Beyond The Medical Terminologies

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Healthcare in India is growing rapidly. Individuals have started taking immense interest in this field. To a common man healthcare is just getting sick, referring to a physician and taking the medicines. But actually healthcare is vast sector. It involves support of various healthcare officials. With fast changing standard of living, people have started taking health issues in a serious way. The growing number of health related issues has given rise to healthcare centers like nursing homes and clinics. Any healthcare center cannot run single handedly by the doctor, nurse or technician only. To deliver smooth healthcare solutions, it requires hard working management team which handles entire set of administrative tasks which helps the patients to take advantage of healthcare facilities. To fulfill the demand of healthcare managers, Healthcare Management Training institutes are making effort to groom the professionals who can match the pace of fast growing healthcare industry. The growing interest of individuals in healthcare has made it a rewarding career option in India.

With the growing need of world class health facilities, students are opting for courses in healthcare management which in turn can give a good start to their careers. These courses dont merely cover medicine knowledge but also put focus on the management techniques that help in delivering high success. Management course in healthcare does not limit the job option to any healthcare center only; it rather opens the career options in various organizations such as health insurance offices, clinics, rehabilitation centers, psychological health firms, consulting organizations, child care centers, NGOs etc. Trained healthcare professionals can also opt for teaching jobs in colleges or educational institutions for imparting training to the students.

Healthcare management India aims at improving the technologies that work to provide best services to the patients. Through management courses individuals are trained to take care of every block of work efficiently. Their primary focus is to improve the care of the patient. These management courses make the students familiar with the use of software technology which helps them to store the patient record and retrieve it as and when required. For e.g. by having record of medical history and prescription list of the patient, medical specialists can get in to the root of the disease and provide the best treatment accordingly. Apart from software skills it also imparts training on resource management, human resource, finance handling, people management, stock management i.e. maintaining the record of drugs, medicines, medical equipments etc.

These courses help the professionals to think and bring innovative ideas which can improve the healthcare system. Through healthcare management courses one can gain the knowledge to plan, manage, coordinate and supervise the complete set of duties related to healthcare. All in all healthcare management course is like any other management courses that builds leadership skills and helps in gaining fast decision making and analytical power which in turn helps to understand the marketing practices and issues related to healthcare.

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