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HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING IN HEALTH CARE

B. Ray*

Human beings are the most important In order to own the system they have to actively
resources in health care. Machines and gadgets participate in designing it. While doing so a
which are integral parts of health care require cross functional team across various sections
the human touch, expertise, and commitment brings about greater effectivity and cohesion
for their full utility and application in delivery than an intra departmental team. Some of the
of health care. Therefore planning of human examples of such teams are given under the
resources is the key to any health care following headings :
provision. The objective of human resource
(HR) policy is to a) attract, recruit, retain and (i) Design/organise formal/informal,
develop competent personnel and b) create a temporary or long term units (teams).
continuously learning health care organisation.
Infection control team, waste
I. TARGET HUMAN RESOURCES management team and quality improvement
IN HEALTH CARE (QIP) team are some of the examples that have
been doing good quality work in Tata Main
The patient unquestionably is the focus Hospital.
of all health care personnel. While doctors,
nurses, hospital attendants, technologists, (ii) Encourage and motivate innovation
clinical assistants and pharmacists are directly through quality circle (QC), value
involved in providing OPD and ward care, engineering (VE) and suggestions.
administration, public relation, security,
catering, laundry, electronics, civil, electrical There are over 104 quality circles actively
and air conditioning maintenance are involved functioning in TMH. These are small circles of
in supporting the former for providing safe five members picked up from supervisors and
health care. Planning needs to be done for all workers who take small local problems and
these personnel and not only for the direct care solve them with organisation’s support.
givers. Employees are encouraged to do cost savings
without affecting the quality through intra or
II. IMPROVEMENT OF HUMAN inter departmental teams. Suggestions are
RESOURCES encouraged from the employees and wherever
appropriate those are implemented.
This is done through three ways such as
a) Work system, b) employee education, (iii) Encourage higher learning, give them
training and development, and c) employee higher responsibilities and help them
well being and satisfaction. identify their training needs.

a) Work system : (iv) Encourage multi skilling and rotate their


jobs wherever possible so that there is no
The aim of work system improvement boredom with the repeatitive type of job.
is to get co-operation and collaboration among This has been implemented amongst the
all employees. Health care employees look for hospital attendants who rotate in
good systems in place so that their endeavours various areas with different job
would yield favourable results without any specifications in the hospital.
wasteful activities. They would like to (v) Performance management system:
participate and feel important in laying down
these systems. A system that is thrust on them Every level of employees must work
often breeds cynicism as they do not own it. with a purpose and their work must be

Sr. Spl. & HOD, Tata Main Hospital


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evaluated against their target from time to important thing is to link their training with
time so that they achieve their target at the the patients’ need in the hospital they are
year end. In TMH, this is done by giving targets working in. In
to all doctors and officers in the form of key
result areas ( KRAs) which are reviewed twice a TMH, the deployment of training has
year. The annual appraisal identifies the been done through regular continuing medical
“super” achievers who are recognised as fast education (CME) for doctors, nurses and
trackers. They move aggressively and groom technologists, bed side teaching for doctors &
rapidly. nurses, training through joint departmental
councils (JDC) for hospital attendants in
(vi) Compensation, recognition and subjects such as waste management and oxygen
reward practices therapy.
This could be non monetary or
monetary. Non monetary recognition could be Communication with patients (or
formal by a letter or informal by a pat on the relatives) was identified through periodic
back in front of other employees. Monetary surveys as one of the weakest links with our
recognitions are through promotions, special employees at all levels. This was repeatedly
increment, joint department council (JDC) addressed through “motivation, attitude and
award or long service awards after 20 yrs, 25 time management (MAT)” programme which
yrs, 35 yrs and 40 yrs of service. was designed by a group of highly motivated
employees drawn from all sections in TMH.
(vii) Communication meetings at all levels
Having a training programme in place
Communication upward and down-ward is not enough. There has to be an evaluation
helps inculcate among the employees a sense of system in place for monitoring the effectiveness
oneness in the organisation. This is done at a of training. The parameters which need to be
pre-decided interval regularly in TMH. monitored should be directly related to “patient
(viii) Recruiting and hiring new employees well-being.” Some such parameters could be
catheter induced infection rates, mortality and
While recruiting employees, the morbidity parameters, feed back from patients
hospital must first identify the job requirement and relatives, number of re-admissions for the
and while interviewing, an attitudinal and same ailment and above all “retaining the
aptitudinal survey of the candidate must be customer.”
done. Transparency must be practiced while
explaining to the candidate his/her future (C ) Employee well being and satisfaction
growth in the organisation. The new employee Employee satisfaction is essential for a
should be made familiar to the working of the motivated work force. It will do what a state of
hospital through ‘induction’ to various areas the art technology cannot do in health care. This
before he/she is finally posted to his/her place issue could be addressed under three heads
of work. such as i) work environment ii) work climate
and iii) employee's satisfaction.
(b) Employee education, training
and development (i) Work environment: A healthy work
environment needs to be created where
Employees’ education, training and employees feel safe to work. Universal
development should be a continuous process. precautions need to be enforced; proper
Their training needs in terms of technical, disposal of waste should be implemented;
managerial and behavioural aspects should be periodic health checkup for all the employees
identified. Short term goals of training need to need to be done and hepatitis B vaccination
be directed towards customer satisfaction and should be compulsorily given to all the
reduction of cycle time and long term goals employees. The organisation needs to identify
should be towards better technology. The and safeguard against unsafe practices. Serious
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efforts have been made in the past two years in about its concern for them. DNB course was
TMH to achieve the desired goals for all the started in TMH after identifying a long
employees in the aforesaid areas. standing need of the graduate doctors in TMH.

III. CONCLUSION
(ii) Work climate : Every employee needs to be
provided with certain awareness programmes A satisfied human resource is valuable
and facilities for him or her to feel “proud and and has no alternative. Human beings’ needs
being looked after” by the organisation. AIDS are dynamic and therefore to satisfy those the
awareness programme, cooperative society, health care organisation has to be dynamically
injury on duty (IOD) facility, subsidised (no thinking. Only then our most important
profit - no loss) canteen facility, academic customer, the patient, can get his just need
activity and library are some of the measures fulfilled. Employee's growth and development
TMH has provided to improve the work should be the result of both the employer’s
climate. responsibility and the employee’s initiative.
Appropriate timely rewards and recognition go a
(iii) Employee’s satisfaction: This is not an easy long way in retaining a motivated employee.
area to tackle. There are few hospitals where Inspite of providing all the help and resources if
most of the employees are satisfied. Human certain human resources can’t be moulded to
mind is not satisfied with what it has achieved fit into the organisation’s needs, the
and therefore to expect that employees will organisation should not hesitate to leave them
be satisfied with certain facilities is far from behind. Tata’s H.R philosophy “attract good
being true; however the organisation must people, retain the better people and advance
collect feedbacks through formal/informal the best people” is a right step in this direction.
assessment methods and relate these findings to It may appear a bit harsh but at present it
identify improvement priorities. This will at appears to be the only scope for a fast changing
least make the employees feel that health care organisation.
management is sincere

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