Health Care System in Australian Samples †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Health Care System in Australian. Answer: Introduction The health system in Australia is a complicated mix of federal and state government responsibilities and funding, thus making it complex for the patients to navigate. In spite of being complex the universal health system of Australia achieves efficiently good results. The expenditure made by the government in the Australian health care system is about 88% of the total GDP. The life expectancy at work in Australia is the sixth highest in the world which is 82.2 years. However there are various challenges which are faced by the health system. According to Grol et al., (2017) although the quality of care which is provided by the Australian heath care system is high, the spending of the country is reportedly unsustainable. An universal access to a various services which are funded largely through public taxation. The aim of this paper is to identify and discuss the features of the Australian health care policy. The paper also considers contemporary health care policy challenges in Australia with respect to health outcome inequities, enabling technical, allocative and quality efficiency and the roles of health professionals. The paper selects one key policy challenge faced by the Australian health system in Australia for the purpose of discussion. The paper concluded with a few recommendations to enhance the health care policies and better handle the challenges in Australia. The features of health policy in Australia The health care system in Australia is complex in nature. It can be described as a web of organization structure, care provider, recipients and services. As an inclusive and multi-faceted approach is needed to address the needs of the many and varied Australian residents, and when varied factors shape those needs age, health history, gender, location cultural background, socioeconomic and behavior, it is impossible to avoid complexity. The health care system is supported by an array of support and governance mechanisms that ensures legislation, coordination, policy, funding and regulations for providing quality services. Through the introduction of potent policies Australia has been able to achieve one of the lowest smoking rates around the world whereas by contrast it has the second highest population of obese people in the world. The public hospitals in Australia are managed by the state and territories only whereas they are funded by the commonwealth, states and territories. The p rivate health insurance is regulated by the federal government and the states provide license to the private hospitals. Various challenges are presented through this complex nature to the people who are suffering from chronic diseases as they more than often require access in a coordinated manner to services across community, acute and primary care sector. The initial contact with the health system of Australia which the residents have is when they visit a general physician. It is the general practitioner which refers these people to diagnostic testing, public hospitals or other options of treatment. However clinic care and patients are merely two components of a wide a complex which includes multiple provides who work in various settings and are supported by many regulatory, legislative and funding arrangements. According to the world health organization health policies are all those rules and regulations in place to ensure a proper protection and enhancement of public health. Its main purpose is to provide good quality service to people whenever they need them. In Australia the health care policies can be described as a multi faceted web of private and public providers, supporting mechanics, participants and settings. Nurses, medical practitioners, hospitals, allied and other health care professionals, clinics and other private and p ublic agencies consists of health providers in Australia. Public health services- responsibility and funding The coordination of the health policies in Australia is largely in the hand of Australian health minister which include the state and territory and the commonwealth ministers. The supplementary coordinative role is imposed upon the Standing council for health which collectively comprises of the health ministers. The council includes the Commonwealth Minister for Veterans' Affairs and the New Zealand Health Minister (AHMAC 2013) and The Standing Council comes under the auspices of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), the highest intergovernmental forum in Australia (AHMAC 2013). It is ensured by the standing council that national health reforms are implemented to the best possible health care services is provided to the residents. The expenditure which the country makes in relation to health care polices is significant. The health care policies in Australia although are complex but they are being managed appropriately to ensure the best possible results for the sectors. The nurses and doctors are guided by several legislations along with a code of conduct and codes of ethics. Some of the legislations which are governed by the minister of health are Aged Care Legislation Amendment (Increasing Consumer Choice) Act 2016, Australian National Preventive Health Agency Act 2010, Biosecurity Act 2015, particularly in relation to human health, Cancer Australia Act 2006, Health Insurance Amendment (Professional Services Review) Act 2012, My Health Records Act 2012 and Medical Indemnity Act 2002. One of the most prominent features of health care policies in Australia is Medicare. It is a government funded insurance which allows the residents to avail healthcare services at a very low cost. Although hospitals are reluctant to accept Medicare as a source of funding it is compulsory to be adopted in government hospitals and various private hospitals have also adopted it. A number of health insurance organizations also provide health insurance. Medicare is the largest health insurance with a market share of 30%. In order to take out private hospital insurance the Australian government has taken few initiatives such as life time health cover, Medicare levy surcharge and private health insurance rebates. There are various non-government organizations also which play a role in the Australian healthcare system. Health policy development, implementation and evaluation processes The major principles which are used in Australia for the development of health have been designed to ensure that the best possible outcomes are obtained. Thus the development guidelines are focused on outcomes, these are based on quality of life attributes and survival rates. For this purpose the guidelines have to be based on the best possible evidence. The strongest possible methods has to be used for synthesize of evidence. Australia uses flexible and adaptable guidelines with respect to local conditions. However according to Britt et al., (2013) the guidelines in Australia for the development of polices are not made taking into account the limitation of resources. The guidelines in Australia ensure that they take into account that they have been developed to target the maximum number of audience. The dissemination and implementation of the guidelines along with its development are regularly revised and evaluated. In Australia the implementations of the guidelines is done through the identification of limitations to implementation and acceptance of the guidelines along with working in coordination with members of target groups to overcome the limitations. The polices are made in a format which is suitable for the audience they have been targeted for. The cost of the health care is kept limited so that it does not become a barrier to access. The functioning of the health care system cannot merely be enhanced through proper implementation. Proper evaluation of policies from time to time is also required to ensure that the policies are effective for their purpose. polices are revised from time to time so that it can be ensured that they are up-to-date with the current environment of health care and meet the present need of the residents (Zwar et al., 2017). Contemporary policy challenges for the Australian health care system There have been various media reports recently in relation to the so called crisis with respect to the Australian health system, a few academic commentators have thrown light upon areas of Australian health care system which needs improvement. One of these commentators has been George Palmer, who has identified areas of health care police needing improvement. The performance of the Australian health care system with respect to criteria of acceptability, efficiency, equality along with the contemporary problems related to such areas (Mills, 2014). One of the major issues in Australia related to the health care system is the quest for equity. The two major elements of equity have been the equity of outcomes and equity of access. One of the most significant development of polices related to health care equity has been the proposal to introduce a universal health insurance. The proposal leads to the development of Medibank in the year 1975. Equity is also affected by financial barriers. Another issue which acts as a barrier to equity is waiting time for gaining access to private surgeons and public hospitals are very time consuming (Weaver et al., 2013). The major issue which is to be discussed through this paper is contemporary challenges related to efficiency. Efficiency is one of the most important criteria for the assessment of a health care system. Two main elements of efficiency which require focus are dynamic efficiency and allocative efficiency (Islam et al., 2015). Allocative efficiency is related to ensuring the optimum resource allocation in relation to the health care system. The concern of such efficiency is to ensure that the input made to the health care policies provide the best possible outcome. However the funding which is made by the government in relation to the health care system is too much as compared to the outcomes which the system has been able to achieve. Technical efficiency has undergone several improvements with respect to the health care sector in the last twenty years. According to (Duckett, Breadon Farmer, 2014) the complicated interlay which is associated with state and common relations in the health sectors lead to inefficiency. However according to Drummond et al., (2015) there is major doubt that multiple reporting requirements significantly hampers efficiency. Moreover the system is very helpful towards cost shifting and addressing problems related to budgets through the transfer of programs to readily accessible c ommonwealth programs like medicare benefit schemes and pharmacy benefits schemes (Burgess Radnor 2013). The process allows that the attention of the managers towards directly enhancing efficiency is diverted which possibly results in loss of system efficiency. In addition a real problem with respect to state-commonwealth relation exits in terms of accountability and political process. The issue related to responsibility in the health sector denotes that whenever there is a problem in the system there is a game of shifting the blame on other level of politicians. This issue creates problems related to accountability of the management systems. Another key element related to efficiency is effectiveness. Effectiveness strives to ensure that one of the elements to this is efficacy to the degree to which the outputs of the system led to most effective outcomes. The primary objectives of policy are to ensure that the actual effectiveness is closest to the best possible outcomes. Priority settings are also a key issue related to allocative efficiency. Dynamic efficiency refers to the degree to which the healthcare system overall has the capacity of adopting to changes. The health care policy in Australian reflects dynamic efficiency at a clinical level by being relatively open in adapting changes (Happell et al. 2015). Conclusion There has been various media speculations related to the shortcomings of the Australian health care system. However many studies depict that the scenario is not as bad as it is shown to the public. The Australian health care system is one of the best health care systems in the world. However it cannot be said that the system is free from defects. The system is subjected to many limitations because of its complex nature. One of the most prominent issues in relation to the system is the lack of allocative efficiency. The funds which are allocated towards the healthcare system are not providing the proportionate expected outcomes. the reason for this may be various insignificant issues in the system which are too small to be focused on but add up to effect the efficiency of the system. The issue can be addressed through increasing the accountability of the ministers and preventing them from sifting the blame of other levels of ministers in case of defaults. References Britt, H., Miller, G. C., Henderson, J., Bayram, C., Valenti, L., Harrison, C., ... O'Halloran, J. (2013).General Practice Activity in Australia 2012-13: BEACH: Bettering the Evaluation and Care of Health(No. 33). Sydney University Press. Burgess, N. and Radnor, Z., 2013. Evaluating Lean in healthcare.International journal of health care quality assurance,26(3), pp.220-235. Drummond, M. F., Sculpher, M. J., Claxton, K., Stoddart, G. L., Torrance, G. W. (2015).Methods for the economic evaluation of health care programmes. 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