Human resources are identified as key elements in the health care sector. Human resources under health care can be identified in two categories: the nurses and physicians. In order to achieve an efficient provision of health care, the two categories of people are required. The personnel are also supposed to be “well trained and well motivated” besides being employed in adequate numbers to ensure that the services provided are “safe and of high quality” (OECD, 2011, p. 1). Though the quality of training to the health personnel may improve with time following technological developments, there is an expected increase in the gap between the demand for health care and its corresponding supply which is calling for preventive measures to avoid a looming crisis of lack of or inadequate provision of health care. The number of health personnel is already identified to be reducing relative to the increasing number of cases of demands for health care. The reduction in human resources in health care has been identified with a number of factors that include “population ageing, technological advances and higher patient expectations” (OECD, 2011, p. 1). The ageing factor is a particular threat that is resulting in an increased number of older people who needs medical attention while at the same time, there are not enough replacement of the retiring health personnel since their number is far more than the number of the young generation that is getting into the profession. A culture that is being adopted regarding reduced office hours by health personnel is also playing a role with respect to the volume of services that can be offered. The reduction of working hours will either have the effect of reducing accessibility to health care or result in reduced quality as medical personnel struggle to serve the same number of patients within shorter time duration. Reported cases of early or even partial retirement by health workers are another significant factor to the impending threat in the availability of human resource in the health care sector. Adequate measures are therefore recommended by the authors for the prevention of the relative scarcity of human resource to the demand for health care (OECD, 2011).
According to the article, which is a review of a study to management of human resources, the study or management of human resources in health care is concerned with decisions that are made with respect to establishing a sufficient supply of human resource. As illustrated by the article, the ratio of demand to supply is not universal and policies can be adopted to either attract human resource from other regions or even to influence an increase into the number of new professionals into the health care profession. With the help of “policies and planning tools, size, distribution, and composition” (OECD, 2011, p. 1) of human resource in health care facilities can be shaped in order to safeguard the effective, efficient and affordable health care provision. Effects of incentives and motivational moves over health care personell are also identified as an essential to improving the initiatives of human resources for better health care services (OECD, 2011).
The article directly relates to the aspects of human resources management as outlined by Wolper (2004). According to Wolper (2004), health care systems require “significant numbers of highly skilled and specialized personnel” (Wolper, 2004, p. 1) to ensure recommended provision of health services.
References
OECD. (2011). Human resources for health care study. Web.
Wolper, L. (2004). Health care administration: planning, implementing, and managing organized delivery systems. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.