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FEATURE HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT 035 H


ealthcare is changing and we need to look at the industry differently. If we adopt the patient’s perspective, it will be easier to recognize and manage one of the biggest issues healthcare is suffering from: process waste (or non-value


added activities). In the US healthcare system for example, $1.3 million is ‘wasted’ every minute in non-value added activities. When you see healthcare through the customer’s vantage point, it becomes very clear that our system needs to be re-designed in order to be more focused on patient-centred care. At the heart of this journey is changing mindsets.


HEALTHCARE LANDSCAPE CHANGES IN THE GCC REGION Here in the GCC countries, everywhere you look, there are changes taking place in the healthcare industry. These changes range from staffing- up front-line staff to governmental level structural transformations (see table 1 for macro indicators for the healthcare sector in GCC). Some of the observed or projected changes for the GCC include;


 Increased awareness of population health risks and diseases like diabetes, heart disease and the need for a healthy lifestyle. This has put the healthcare items high on government agendas across the region. The statistics are sobering. For example, in Abu Dhabi UAE, 71% of the population has at least one risk factor for CVD, 50% of people over 50 years of age have diabetes and 25% of deaths are caused by CVD.  Moving from MoH to a tri-partite structure: regulatory, delivery and insurance. These governmental structural changes should increase flexibility and open up the market through privatization. The Abu Dhabi government has already embraced the new structure and created Health Authority Abu Dhabi (HAAD) as the regulatory body, SEHA as the healthcare delivery arm and Daman as the insurance company. This new structure has enabled government resources to focus more on primary healthcare and on opening up the market for competition. Weqaya Disease Management Program is one such example where HAAD has called for private and public companies to bid in a tender process towards offering cardio-vascular disease management programmes for the population of Abu Dhabi Emirate.  Lack/shortage of skilled resources. Considering population growth, increased number of hospital beds (new hospitals as well as extensions to existing ones) and the higher prevalence of non-communicable diseases (DM, CVD) in the GCC, there is now a higher demand for healthcare staff than ever. Added to that the fact that most salaried expats who come to the GCC have a 3-4 year length of stay on average, and the fact that the workforce is actually a hybrid of various cultures and backgrounds, there is a real need for culture-focused change management and leadership courses to empower existing front-line staff to achieve higher levels of performance.  Compared with the West, healthcare spend in the GCC remains a low percentage of the overall GDP. This means that the trend for healthcare expenditure as a percentage of GDP is likely to increase and as a result there is probably going to be an explosive growth of the 


IN SHORT


 There are many changes taking place in the healthcare industry in the GCC ranging from staffing-up front-line staff to governmental level structural transformations  Healthcare delivery is structurally changing. Archaic ways of managing and delivering care can no longer cope with the changing environment, cost constraints, expectations and prospects  Healthcare delivery is a function of organization design – teamwork plays a vital role in ensuring quality of care.


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