Challenges of performance management in the healthcare industry
Today the healthcare industry is facing significant challenges as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic that is affecting the whole world currently. There is a lot of pressure on the healthcare industry with the increased numbers of patients, and lack of adequate preparation has increased pressure in the operations available in the healthcare industry. Over the past decades, many steps have been taken to improve the healthcare system to ensure every individual can access proper medical care. Some of the challenges that are facing the healthcare industry include;
Employees Problems.
The healthcare industry is quite complicated because of the level of accuracy that is required. Doctors need to know the exact and proper medication that need to be administered or else they will end up further damaging the health conditions of patients. There are only a few individuals that can work in the healthcare industry, creating a massive demand for doctors and nurses. To make matters worse, this is not translated to their earning as health workers are still underpaid and taken for granted despite all the conditions like trauma and long hours they have to undergo in their daily routine.
The main challenge now is employee’s dissatisfaction because of the healthcare industry being understaffed and the high turnover rate in health institutions and hospitals. Health institutions need to improve the services they offer their staff members to motivate them and to ensure individuals can access the best medical care from hospitals and health institutions. Studies have shown that health workers would provide fur much better service if their long working hours would be translated to improved salaries and create a better working environment. These would help to improve patients experience and will help in saving more lives than would have otherwise been lost.
Limited Opportunities and Performance Improvement
Majority of the healthcare employees don’t have the means to advance their career to get opportunities that come with increased training, career growth and skills development and improvement. Inadequate development and training opportunities have left healthcare employees to be demotivated, dissatisfied and unfocused in their daily routines. Employee dissatisfaction in the healthcare industry can be fatal as the hospital, and health care institutions could lead to patients losing their lives and others patient’s conditions becoming worse as they are not attending as it is supposed to. Studies have shown that health professionals are usually unhappy because of the limited training opportunities that they can utilize to improve further their skills and opportunities for getting promoted.
Increased Workload in the healthcare industry
The COVID-19 pandemic that is currently affecting the world has created a lot of pressure to the healthcare industry. Patients with underlying conditions like cancer and older adults health conditions are at risk because of the high infection rate of COVID-19. These have resulted to many countries shutting down their economies to help curb the spread of the virus and to ease the pressure on the healthcare industry that is under enormous pressure with increased patients, inadequate staff and lack of technological innovation to help reduce these pressure. Increased fear and attrition rate is causing a massive challenge in the healthcare industry resulting to some employees quitting their jobs because of the poor working conditions, risks of getting infected with COVID-19, absence of rewards for their efforts, increased Workload and low technology and lack of innovation to help speed up various health processes like testing. Working in long hours and multiple shifts also affect the mental and physical health of healthcare workers and increased Workload and fatigue further affects the personal and social life of healthcare workers because of limited engagement with other people in the society. Lack of recognition and appreciation increases the misery healthcare workers faces resulting in detachment and demotivation from employee and work turnover.
Lack of customary procedures to better measure the performance of healthcare employees
Providing high-quality healthcare and patient-centric services is a critical priority in health institutions and hospitals. Healthcare system requires employees to be committed to dealing with patients hence employees need to be evaluated in terms of their performance to reward these employees better and also motivate the other employees to carry out their tasks with passion. The absence of measuring the systemic understanding of healthcare employees makes it more challenging to review the performance of different employees. These usually result to some staff being undervalued as a result of the poor performance of health institutions resulting to these employees remaining in the same job position for long a long period before they can get promotions and salary increase.
Lack of measurable goals has resulted in employees not understanding clearly what is expected of them. The healthcare system lack of well-established purpose and guidelines for employees has resulted in poor performance and lack of accountability of health workers. Holding healthcare workers accountable for their actions helps to improve performance and patients experiencing positive changes will help to create a lasting impression in the patient’s minds. Setting goals in the healthcare systems would greatly help to improve the performance of health workers and the services that patients will receive when they are undergoing treatment in these health facilities.
Protecting the healthcare system from external attacks
With advanced technologies being incorporated in the healthcare system and internet connectivity to ensure patients and employees get enough information regarding their health and the best way to forward given the different circumstances of patients. Technologies come with the challenge of hackers who are always looking for vulnerabilities in organization systems to steal data and sell it to the highest bidder. In 2015, the U.S. government issued a warning to the healthcare industry that hackers can be able to deliver instructions to the infusion pumps to administer medication that is otherwise not stated. Multiple device connectivity to hospitals and health institutions Wi-Fi can lead to hackers providing malicious programs to the system that can cause harm to patients.
High Pricing for Pharmaceuticals Products
Over the years, insurers, patients and regulators have been complaining about the high prices of pharmaceuticals products. On the other hand, pharmaceutical manufacturers believe the high prices are necessary for further future research, and lower prices will hinder other developmental products from being developed due to lack of capital resources. The two groups battled have left patients suffering due to the high prices of prescription drugs cost. The government has tried to increase pressure on pharmaceutical manufacturers to lower their prices. Human pharmaceutical trials are restricted by strict laws to ensure that individual’s lives are not placed in dangerous positions. These have created mixed reactions with some individuals believing we could have made much advancement in the medical industry to increase the lifespan of people.
More People need Healthcare.
Today prominent people are eating a lot of junk food and unhealthy diets causing different health problem today’s population. For example, today, many children are facing an obesity problem from a young age, and heart-related problems have been on the rise in young adults. These conditions have been made worse with the COVID-19 virus creating more health problems to patients with other underlying conditions. The unhealthy lifestyle of individuals has resulted in many patients going to hospitals and health institutions in search of treatment resulting in increased pressure to the healthcare industry that is already understaffed. Little exercise has also resulted to many individuals living unhealthy lives as people drive to work, children staying all day indoors playing video games, not paying attention to healthy diets, and nutritious food like kales lacking in today’s food.
Ethical Issues in Healthcare industry
Today doctors are faced with different situations that will require difficult choices to make. Other doctors usually have different ideas on how to solve medical issues with Utilitarian and Deontology school of thoughts playing a significant role when it comes to making decisions about patients that need to get medical attention first. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased pressure on the healthcare industry with patients streaming in hospital for medical care and doctors are left with the decision involving patients that need urgent medical care and those that will be made to wait in line because their conditions are nor severe. Doctors are also required to maintain the patient’s confidentiality and could have dire consequences if this trust is broken. Patients medical records need to be kept confidential, which is why hospitals and healthcare institutions need to invest in advanced security measures to ensure the organization data is safe from hackers and unauthorized users.
When it comes to making these decisions, doctors are left with the guilt of denying other patients their right to medical access, creating a lot of dispute between the two ethical classes. Hospitals are developing solutions with outside partners on the best way forward that doctors can use to determine how patients are going to receive treatment in hospitals and health institutions. Doctors are also faced with a different situation when dealing with patients of the opposite sex. These situations need to be taken seriously because of the increased cases of doctors taking advantage of patients of the opposite set with or without their consent. These have resulted in numerous lawsuits against doctors and health institutions over the past, and adequate measures need to be considered to eliminate this situation.