Assignment Help on National Health Workforce Plan

Introduction

Human resource for healthcare services is one of the most important aspects and a critical component for health policies (Rao, 2017). Healthcare is one of the  largest services in India. India has public hospitals and privately owned hospitals (Sabu, 2019). States is responsible for functioning of public healthcare delivery system and center contributes to its in form of policy making, planning, supporting and providing adequate funds to various health authorities to implement national programs (Rao, 2017). The government health services are available for all citizens under tax-financed public system. But there are several issues in accessing such service due to lack of facilities, doctors, other staff, equipment and others that forces many people to seek private care, which results in increased individual spending on healthcare (Tiwari, Negandhi & Zodpey, 2018). The rationale for choosing India for analyzing the health workforce plan as the country’s healthcare industry has asymmetric status of healthcare delivery across the country. It is one of the largest service sectors in terms of revenue generation and employment (Bhattacharjee & Mohan. 2017). The country has increased imbalance between urban and rural healthcare institutions and in spite of poor access and financial constraints, private health care is preferred both in rural and urban areas. Through this report, the reasons behind the symmetry and imbalances in healthcare industry is analyzed and recommendations are provided. 

Environmental Scan for Health Workforce

Economic and demographic changes within a nation puts significant burden on the healthcare workforce across the globe (Tiwari et al., 2018). Retaining healthcare workforce is a big challenge whole developing a healthcare provision system to respond to the different needs of people with different diseases (Sabu, 2019). The environmental scan helps in identifying best practices for developing and deploying comprehensive solutions to enhance the workforce development (Rao, 2017). Following is the environmental scan for health workforce of India.

Healthcare System Structure

The healthcare system structure in India include public and private care. In private there are two sections for-profit institutions and not-for profit institutions (Hazarika, 2013). In public healthcare systems, where are primary, secondary, tertiary institutions (Sabu, 2019). Primary includes community health centers, primary health centers and sub-centers. In secondary healthcare only sub-district hospitals exist and Tertiary include District Hospitals and Medical Colleges. The public health spending is set to increase to  2.5 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025, which is very less as compared to share of GDP total health expenses in the developed nations (The Economic Times, 2018). The international economies emphasize that health outcomes are closely related to the health expenditure borne by the government. India spends less than half in health expenditure as compared to BRIC countries (Sabu, 2019). The three main goals to which healthcare contributes include high quality care, patient access and efficiency or cost containment (Burns, 2014). In US, the focus of healthcare is changed from expanding access to healthcare services, then policy shifted to cost containment and deal with increased utilization and cost of services, which then led to expanding access to insurance for different population segment (Sabu, 2019). India faces challenges in pursing all three goals as nearly 70 per cent or more healthcare is financed by population out of pocket. The efficiency of the rest 30 per cent of healthcare system, which is financed by government sources is very less and there is a great distrust of the public sector healthcare overall (Sabu, 2019).