Health Service Planning

Health Service Planning

Introduction

In the 1960s, the interest of practitioners increased manifold towards the field of health care and health care management. The 20th century marked a sudden rose of this interest as practitioners began to express their interest in the development of more efficient and standardized approaches for the development and planning of health care services (Chambers, Ehrlich, Picard, Edwards, 2002). By the start of the 21st century, the term began to be used very increasingly and depicted the increasing interest of people in the field. People gradually began to invest in more efforts for the design of health care facilities that were more beneficent and more efficient in their functioning, while ensuring that they could be accessed easily by people belonging to various sectors of the society (Health Services Research Information Centre, 2013).

Health Service Planning

The term health service planning can be defined as a process that appraises the overall needs of people related to health facilities. The planning of health services is a wide topic and expands to incorporate a vast diversity of people belonging to a certain geographic area or population. The primary aim behind this process is to determine and develop most efficient plans that can cater to the needs of all. This requires careful and well-organized distribution of resources while keeping the existing and anticipated scenarios under consideration at all times (Thomas, 2003). Ultimately, the chief objectives of this process is the identification of the need of people belonging to certain geographic region and then determining the best possible means for addressing all those needs.

Initiating the Process of Health Services Planning

There are numerous reasons that can promote the need for the development of a health care service which requires effective planning for ensuring success. These requirements may be concentrated within a community, an organization or interests of people belonging to a certain group. However, any developed health care service depicts the influences by politics and other social and economic factors that operate within a distinct healthcare environment. Some of these factors that need to be considered include the health care reforms, health care needs, the technological advancements and the evidence-based programs which define the standards and specifications of a particular service. It is very essential for the planners to maintain a good level of balance between all of these factors to ensure the efficiency and success of their planned health care services (Ardal, Baigent, Bains, Hay, Lee, Loomer, 2005).

Owing to the seriousness of the topic, a great deal of research has been done in the field to address issues related to the planning of health services. For this purpose, various methodologies have been evaluated for ensuring that the best methodologies can be identified and implemented. However, before the finalization of a planning technique, the various requirements and underlying mechanisms of a particular geographic area should be assessed in detail so that the best strategy can be implemented to serve the people. Various known methodologies used for the planning of health care services ...