Question

Why is it important for a healthcare organization today to make their human resources into a competitive advantage? Explain how human resources management can contribute to doing this.

Answer 1

Proper management of human resources is critical in providing a high quality of health care. A refocus on human resources management in health care and more research are needed to develop new policies. Effective human resources management strategies are greatly needed to achieve better outcomes from and access to health care around the world. Within many health care systems worldwide, increased attention is being focused on human resources management (HRM). Specifically, human resources are one of three principle health system inputs, with the other two major inputs being physical capital and consumables. 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. When examining global health care systems, it is both useful and important to explore the impact of human resources on health sector reform. While the specific health care reform process varies by country, some trends can be identified. Three of the main trends include efficiency, equity and quality objectives. Various human resources initiatives have been employed in an attempt to increase efficiency. Outsourcing of services has been used to convert fixed labor expenditures into variable costs as a means of improving efficiency.Human resources in health sector reform also seek to improve the quality of services and patients' satisfaction.