THE BERKSHIRE HEALTHCARE NHS TRUST CASE

The Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust Case



The Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust Case

Task One

The strategic use of information technology (IT) to achieve competitive advantage is an area that has been hotly debated, especially as of late. For example, in a Harvard Business Review article entitled "IT Doesn't Matter," it has been stipulated that information technology (IT) provides no competitive advantage since any firm can buy the same technology as another; IT has become ubiquitous and commonplace (Carr, 2003). This premise is naive and dangerous in that it presupposes that the value of IT is only derived from hardware and software. In fact, firms gain competitive advantage by leveraging IT and integrating their processes in new and innovative ways.

The International Network of Health Promoting Berkshire Healthcare NHS (HPH) was initiated more than 10 years ago with the aim to reorient health care institutions to integrate health promotion and education, disease prevention and rehabilitation services in the curative care.1 An increasing number of chronic patients, requiring continuous support, and hospital staff frequently being exposed to physical and emotional strains pushed in this direction.

Health promotion is defined in the Ottawa Charter as "the process of enabling people to increase control over, and improve, their health".2 Health in this context not only refers to the objective view of the absence of disease but also to implying a subjective and holistic view, adding mental resources and social well-being to physical health. Health promotion is understood to embrace health education, disease prevention and rehabilitation services, but stresses that information, education and advice only lead to sustained behavioural change if supported by prevailing norms, rules and cultures. Health promotion interventions in organizations therefore have to address these underlying causes.

There is large scope and public health motivation for offering health promotion strategies in health care settings.

Berkshire Healthcare NHS consume between 40% and 70% of the national health care expenditure and typically employ about 1% to 3% of the working population.3 these working places are characterized by certain physical, chemical, biological and psychosocial risk factors. Paradoxically, in hospitals—organizations that aim to restore health—the acknowledgement of factors that endanger the health of their staff is poorly developed.

Berkshire Healthcare NHS can also have a lasting impact on influencing the behaviour of patients and relatives, who are more responsive to health advice in situations of experienced ill-health.4,5 Given the increasing prevalence of chronic disease in Europe and throughout the world and low compliance with treatment, therapeutic education is becoming a major issue.6 Most hospital treatments do not cure but rather aim at improving the quality of life of patients. To maintain this quality, patients and relatives have to be prepared and educated more intensively for discharge.

Task Two

Berkshire Healthcare NHS produces Net Present Cost which is high amounts of waste and hazardous substances. Introducing health promotion strategies to hospitals can help to reduce the pollution of the environment and cooperation with other institutions and professionals can help to achieve the highest possible coordination of ...