Why the Importance of Human Resource Management  in the Healthcare Sector?

 

Human Resource Management is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued asset - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives (Michael Armstrong 2006).

Human Resource – This is an organization’s human capital. It consists of many parts, but the most common are strategy over the organization of human capital, recruitment, organizational policy, and organizational structure. This part is most commonly managed by the upper-management or board of directors, not the HR department.

Human Resource Management – This is the management of HR. here an organization manages the strategies they made clear, and take care of the day-to-day business. HRM is often done by the HR-department, but also lower management could be involved in HRM. It is a comment to combine HR and HRM, but it is important to understand the differences. The upper management makes the HR strategy and the HR -department or lower management tries to fulfill strategy HRM.

Human resource management system (HRMS) – this is the system employees to increase their performance. The HRMS is used to help the HR-department or the lower management to make a better job practicing HRM.

 

“Since all health care is ultimately delivered by and to people, a strong understanding of the human resources management issues are required to ensure the success of any health care program”
 (M. Kabene et al,2006 “human resource for health” , volume 4,p.15)

 

  The same is applicable to the health sector as well. In Sri Lanka, the public health sector which is under the Ministry of Health is the main healthcare provider. The public health sector in Sri Lanka is the second largest public service provider next to education. As of 31 December 2015, the Sri Lankan public health sector employed a total of 1,23,855 It is distributed as 66,993 in the line ministry and 56,852 in the provinces. Organizing these personnel who form the nucleus of the health care delivery is a huge task. To ensure an even delivery of the services in a country that suffered war for three decades, the Ministry of Health should devise a plan which would ensure that healthcare services reach each citizen of Sri Lanka.

 

Human resources, when pertaining to health care can be defined as the different kinds of clinical and non-clinical staff responsible for public and individual health intervention. As arguably the most important of the health system inputs, the performance, and the benefits the system can deliver depend largely upon the knowledge, skills, and motivation of those individuals responsible for delivering health services.

As well as the balance between the human and physical resources, it is also essential to maintain an appropriate mix between the different types of health promoters and caregivers to ensure the system's success. Due to their obvious and important differences, it is imperative that human capital is handled and managed very differently from physical capital. The relationship between human resources and health care is very complex, and it merits further examination and study.

Both the number and cost of health care consumables (drugs, prostheses, and disposable equipment) are rising astronomically, which in turn can drastically increase the costs of health care. In publicly-funded systems, expenditures in this area can affect the ability to hire and sustain effective practitioners. In both government-funded and employer-paid systems, HRM practices must be developed in order to find the appropriate balance of workforce supply and the ability of those practitioners to practice effectively and efficiently. A practitioner without adequate tools is as inefficient as having the tools without the practitioner.

Accessing good-quality health care services can be incredibly arduous for those living in Sri Lanka, and more specifically, for those residing in rural areas. For many reasons, medical personnel and resources may not be available or accessible for such residents. As well, the issue of migrant health care workers is critical. Migrant health workers can be defined as professionals who have a desire and the ability to leave the country in which they were educated and migrate to another country. The workers are generally enticed to leave their birth country by generous incentive offers from the recruiting countries.

 To ensure the success of the systems, it is necessary to maintain a balance between the physical and human resources. HRM practices need to be developed appropriately to appropriately balance the workforce supply and ability of the practitioners to practice effectively and efficiently. Workforce training is also a crucial issue in the healthcare industry. In-house training of healthcare professionals may be required to ensure that the workforce is aware of and is prepared to meet society’s present and future demands. A well trained and competent workforce is essential to any successful healthcare system. It has been observed that in the developing countries, healthcare workers are often underpaid, poorly motivated, and very dissatisfied, hence migration of the workforce is an important issue, which can be suitably addressed only by a well-developed Human Resource Management body within the ministry.

Also, the politicization of trade unions has hindered them from performing a better public service. They are tempted to take advantage of it arbitrarily only in relation to the profession. This leads to salary disparities between different services, which in turn makes other employees dissatisfied.

Conclusion

 

Since all health care is ultimately delivered by and to people, a strong understanding of the human resources management issues are required to ensure the success of any health care program. Further human resources initiatives are required in many health care systems, and more extensive research must be conducted to bring about new human resources policies and practices that will benefit individuals around the world.

References. 

Ministry of Health    - http://www.health.gov.lk/moh_final/english

M. Kabene et al,2006 “human resource for health” 

Michael Armstrong. Human resource management practice  10th edition.