Resource Allocation for Care of Children-Free-Samples for Students

Question: In a Hospital Context, how would you prioritise what share of resources goes to care of children versus care of the elderly including Palliative Care? Answer: Introduction The current assignment focuses on the concept of allocation of resources and priority setting for catering to the care needs of children and old age people in a hospital setting. The resources could be diversified into different types such as financial resources, physical resources such as machines and equipments. The human resources also play a crucial role over here which includes recruiting the right healthcare professionals. The assignment emphasizes upon setting up of priority care needs of the children and the elderly. The requirements for both the age groups are different and require high degree of specializations. The assignment also focuses upon the economical and no-economical measures which further impacts upon the care strategies undertaken within a hospital environment. Care ethics As a pediatric care giver, one bears the responsibility of caring for many delicate and vulnerable lives each day. Its fully ethical to set priorities of quality care giving on every shift assigned to without fail which forthrightly includes physical presence. Even though the child medical profession is quite involving and overwhelmingly demanding, the individuals in these positions should ensure they attend to all children's emotional and physical needs (Ameritech College of Healthcare 2015). Openness to the child-patient family and any other supervisor(s) is a virtue to be upheld at all time. Commitment to provide the best care to the child should be paramount given that terminal illnesses aren't a usual occurrence in children. The "uncommonness" of the disease incidence presents the child's care provider with unique challenges in care provision to the child and his or her family (Get palliative care 2017). Although diverse clientele groups often demand various needs, the resources to satisfy these requirements are redundantly scarce. Nevertheless, these conditions still do require satisfying, and thus individuals or entities have to devise means to curb them. One way of achieving this is via ordering them in a hierarchical format beginning with the most sensitive/demanding. Priority setting culminates to the "process of involving clients and stakeholders in determining which needs are most important" (The University of Arizona 2010). Priority setting at the hospital level. In the recent past, priority setting research has delved on macro and micro level surprisingly despising the hospital level of health care provision (Barasa, Molyneux, English and Cleary 2015). Barasa, Molyneux, English, and Cleary quotes that the neglecting of the institutional level should now be covered given the essential responsibility that hospitals Harbor in providing health care services (2015). It's prudent not to view patient care provision as a comprehensive treatment practice since patient needs, across all demographics, are diverse and multifaceted (King University 2014). The changes in adults hold potential positive or negative health precursors even as many of the elderly's body functions continually deteriorate (King University 2014). Resource allocation for care of children The provision of optimum and standard care services are dependent on allocation of the right amount of resources. For the purpose of which the resource allocation system needs to be designed. As commented by Norheim et al. (2014), the funding for the personal budget is done by the council aimed towards the availability of supportive frameworks for meeting the care needs of the children. Therefore, in order to meet the diverse care requirements of children the Australian government, Department of Health (DOH), have inculcated a number of intervention policies aimed towards child health care within a clinical setup. As commented by Smith et al. (2013), the policies are aimed towards the allocation of optimal resources for implementing programs such as Child Health Check Initiative(CHCI) and Expanding Health Service Delivery Initiative (EHSDI). The resource allocation and the funding for the allocation of the resources are dependent upon differentiating and prioritising the levels of su pport needed by the children. The support levels can be differentiated into low support, some support, small support, lots of support and exceptional support requirements. The support service requirements can be divided into different bandings based upon the Resource allocation system (RAS) score. The RAS score can be divided into different score groups such as 0-69, 70-145, 146-185, 186-210, 211-220. As asserted by Nord and Johansen (2014), a score 69 or below means less support is required by the growing children. In this context, the health and well being outcomes are met through the provision of universal services. The score board of 131-145 points at small support service requirements, where the child depicts a mix of health needs. Therefore, children facing such adverse conditions need to provided with adequate support with the help of equipments and well trained staff and nurses. The score of 171-185 means that universal services alone are not sufficient to meet the health requirements of the children. Therefore, personal budgeting and continued support through social services can be helpful. This is further supported by high and very complex c are needs, which aims at providing care and support services through the integration of multidisciplinary channels. The multiple channels include health, education and social care services which are extended through EHSDI. The priority setting forms an important component of the care plan and treatment process. For catering to the care concerns of the children within a hospital setting the assessing cost effectiveness initiative had been applied over here. The method specifies the community value, combines technical and due process and is explicit in nature. As commented by Whitty et al. (2014), the care provision is based upon guidance from economic theory, social ethics, empirical experiences. This helps in addressing the patient centred needs by drawing upon a specified list of plan. Priority setting for elderly Allocation of resources for the elderly is dependent upon the setting up of and implementation of important instruments such as the Aged care functioning instrument (ACFI). The implementation of such policies helps in focussing upon the core care concerns for the budgeting and the allocation of policies. As commented by Hipgrave et al. (2014), the implementation of such approaches are useful in measuring as well as checking the average care costs in longer hospital stays. The funds are allocated based upon profiling of the care needs or concerns of the patients. As argued by Drake (2014), caring for old people often brings us to dealing with the concepts of end-of life palliative care. Thus, such care provisions are mainly provided to patients suffering from incurable chronic conditions. The only aim of the provision of such care treatments is to make death a less painful experience for the support users. The priority setting in the following area of care management is mainly non-economic in nature. This could be attributed to the dependency upon huge infrastructural support such as life support systems and modern diagnostic interventions and tools. However, a mixed method could be followed over here which includes Program Budgeting and Marginal Analysis (PBMA) along with consensus priority setting. The PBMA approach is based upon resource re-allocation and follows an explicit manner of decision making (Conklin et al. 2015). The process is supported by hard and soft evidences which help in implementing the resource allocation system. Additionally, implementing a consensus based approach helps in providing support services to the ones with impaired cognition and decision making approaches (Mitton et al. 2014). The consensus approach keeps the wishes and the demands of the patients at the centre of the care treatment process. However, the same also takes into consideration the valuable inputs from the attending physicians or the family members of the support users. Parameters of priority setting: The CDC quotes that immunization is not for the children alone (2017). This is because childhood vaccinations do wear-off as one age (CDC 2017). An individual may be prone to immunizable illnesses "due to age, lifestyle, health condition, job or travel" (CDC 2017). It is therefore proper for every individual to undergo childhood, traveling, career-related, health-related and age-related immunization procedures. It is prudent to note that adult vaccination is more condition-based than is child immunization. Also, more than ten Million children, under five years of age, are estimated to die every year with roughly 70% succumbing to preventable diseases. This shows the urgency of preteen and teenage vaccination over adult vaccination since the immunization procedures are essential steps towards children health and future protection (U.S. Department of Health Human Services 2017). Health care providers are usually the ones who administer vaccines and thus play a significant role in educ ating children caretakers of the vaccines' life-saving functionalities and safety (Miller et al. 2015). Medical institutions should, therefore, prioritize available resources focusing them on disease prevention practices like the preteen vaccination processes and awareness. Recent studies in the United States show that massive government expenditure savings ($1.38 trillion) were realized when the government adopted a children vaccination program for vaccine provision and administering to all children whose families could not support their acquisition (Whitney et al. 2014). The savings were realized due to prevented illnesses, hospital admissions and premature deaths which cut on the demographic working age group thus reducing and or terminating their respective economic input (Whitney et al. 2014). Health care facilities should, therefore, concentrate resources on child vaccination activities by providing required training to medical practitioners, public vaccine awareness, preventi on drugs and equipment, seasonal follow-up with the kids in learning institutions among other practices promoting child immunization (Miller et al. 2015). Physical activities Physical activities have been said to promote public health responsibilities achievement by local authorities in places where lost productivity is estimated at billions of dollars due to sickness absence and premature death (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence 2013). Many of the chronic illnesses in the elderly are diet and lifestyle related which means that the individuals possess prior experience of physical exercise. The elderly sick can, therefore, perform physical activities with minimal supervision given their high cognitive abilities relative to the preteens. There are also several facilities and equipment in healthcare institutions that can be used by the sick elderly to perform physical exercises. On the other hand, children lack the prior experience of physical activities, the cognitive ability to comprehend the need for physical activities added to their inability to perform these tasks on their own. Despite the vitality of physical activities to the chil dren, the severely sick amidst them sometimes fail to get as much physical exercise as they require (Canadian pediatric Society 2011). To alleviate this situation, medical institutions should (New Jersey Department of Children and Families 2017): Set aside at-least 50 square feet room space per child to allow maximum child mobility and exercise space. Have personalized individual resources for children with different ailments to prevent spreading of communicable diseases while at the same time allowing the physical activity of each child. Acquire outdoor space for children physical activities. All in all, the healthcare facility should have adequate health care personnel due to the uttermost and constant care needed for the sick children as they perform the physical activities. Malnutrition Malnutrition, the nutrition imbalance, can also be defined as cause and consequence of ill health originating from proteins, energy or micronutrients deficiency in a human body. Malnutrition directly causes an estimated 300,000 deaths per annum and is indirectly causing roughly half of all under 5years children deaths. Contrary to the belief that malnutrition is a condition affecting starving children in third world countries, malnutrition is common in developed countries too especially in hospitalized populations (patient 2016). In these communities, the elderly suffer malnutrition if they are suffering from diseases or conditions that affect appetite, have gastrointestinal function problems or have severe mental health concerns. On the other hand, children who are susceptible to malnutrition if they are premature (weaning time), chronically ill, neglected by caregivers among other poverty related complexions (patient 2016). Health facilities should, therefore, be ultimately vigilan t of the sick pre teens dietary needs by providing balanced diets to the children thus managing and curbing malnutrition. Conclusion The assignment takes into consideration the different resource allocation procedures along with priority setting for the care and management of the old and the young. In the current assignment a Resource allocation system where scores have been provided to individual support users based on their care needs. The scores allocated further helps in designing of the care plan whether some and small support services are required or exceptional support services are required. The aged care however follows the ACFI framework for resource allocation. 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