Introduction
This is a brief relating to the financial planning for a health promotion activity for implementation by St. Jack’s Hospital. The hospital serves a community of twenty thousand people and has a bed capacity of one hundred patients. The outpatient unit treats at least fifty patients every day from the immediate community and the neighboring regions. The focus of the brief is to present a fiscal plan and a cost-benefit analysis for an obesity eradication program that the hospital should launch upon approval by its administrators.
Problem Definition
Obesity is becoming a major health concern in many parts of the world. Many countries have made the transition from being food insecure to achieving parity in food availability. The number of obese people is at an all-time high in the world. Part of the cause of this problem is the changes in people’s lifestyles. Many people do not engage in sufficient physical activity to burn extra calories. They are leading sedentary lives that do not demand physical exertion.
Teenagers spend too much time in front of the television and too little time in physical activity. Rather than play in the field, young people prefer to play video games. People who go to work use cars and spend a good portion of their time sitting in front of their desks. The result is that the community around St. Jack’s Hospital is becoming overweight with time. The data collected in the triage units at the hospital indicate a persistent increase in the average weight of patients who come to the hospital.
Obese and overweight people are prone to many lifestyle diseases. Most people under fifty years who suffer from heart attacks also happen to be overweight or obese. The extra calories lead to complications in their circulatory systems because of high cholesterol levels. Obese and overweight people also tend to have lower self-esteem resulting from the treatment other people give them. Obese people stand out in any place. It is quite common to see people throwing glances at someone who appears physically larger than normal. This can lead to other social problems. An obese person is likely to withdraw from normal activities because of unwelcome attention.
Other health problems associated with being obese and overweight include the increased risk of diabetes, aggravation of respiratory ailments such as asthma, increased risk of hypertension, and in some cases the development of bone and joint ailments.
The proposed program will target the immediate population of the adjacent community that the hospital serves. The program will include three main interventions. The first one is promoting physical exercise as a weight management technique. The main methods for doing this will be by visiting the local schools as a means of reaching the students, and by preparing materials for dissemination to all homes and communities in the region. The second one is dietary education to promote healthy eating. The hospital will develop a healthy eating program that will include a diet center at the premises of the hospital.
This center will be under the direction of the chief nutritionist at the hospital. The center will set up a website with dietary information for local delicacies. In addition, the center will prepare flyers and posters that promote balanced diets and posters that describe the impact of unhealthy eating. These two interventions will aim at attaining behavior change in lifestyle and diet management. The third intervention is the use of medical means to deal with obesity. This includes surgical liposuction and the use of drug therapy. This is usually the only option for people with long-term obesity. Medical intervention is the least acceptable way of handling obesity, but in some cases, it is the only option.
The proposed program will be active for one month. The outreach components will involve volunteers who will reach out to the community to help people know their Body Mass Index (BMI). In addition, the volunteers will go to schools and homes to hand out flyers while offering health information. The diet center will remain in operation as part of the outreach activities of the hospital within the Office of the Chief Nutritionist. This means that activities in the diet center will carry on beyond the one-month program.
Basic Budget for Implementation of the Program
Table 1: Budget for Health Promotional Activity.
Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Health Promotional Activity
The fixed cost for the program will amount to 7,250 dollars. The variable costs on the other hand will amount to 36,000 dollars. Therefore, the total cost of the project running for a single month is 43,250 dollars. The actual cost may vary depending on the levels of expenditure on the variable costs, and the level of control the project management committee exerts on the finances of the project (McHugh, Van Dyke, McClelland, & Moss, 2011).
If this project reaches twenty percent of the people living in the region served by St. Jack’s Hospital, then the cost per person will be about eleven dollars. This figure is the result of dividing the total estimated cost of the project (43,250 dollars) by twenty percent of the total number of residents in the region (twenty percent of the 20,000 residents). The benefits that the project will create include the following.
First, the community will become more aware of the options available for them to keep within healthy weight limits. Secondly, each person who will access a BMI testing unit will know their optimum weight for their height. This will empower them to make decisions regarding when to take action if their weight falls out of the recommended range. The third benefit that the community will experience is that the community will have a resource center for dieting and exercise. The resource center will promote healthy living leading to a better-adjusted community. The secondary benefits will be a healthier community with fewer social problems that result from obesity. In addition, the members of the community will become more productive and will spend fewer days in the hospital because of weight-related illnesses.
Viability of Implementation
These benefits are far-reaching when compared to the investment of eleven dollars per person. If the community will become a better place to live in, with fewer health and social problems, the project is worth the funds. The program will help to reduce the number of overweight and obese people in the community. Even if it is not possible to do this in a single month, it will raise awareness, which will contribute towards the eradication of obesity in the community. The community will become a more physically active place. The number of people attending gyms and those working out individually will increase because of the program.
The community will experience a reduction in healthcare spending which means that the disposable income of the people will increase (Jacobs, Rapoport, & Jonsson, 2009). From a healthcare provider perspective, the hospitals in the region will be able to offer better services because of a reduction in patients with complications related to being obese and overweight (Jacobs, Rapoport, & Jonsson, 2009). These benefits outweigh the costs. The final recommendation is that the hospital should implement the program.
References
Jacobs, P., Rapoport, J., & Jonsson, E. (2009). Cost Containment and Efficiency in National Health Systems: A Global Comparison. Weinheim: Wiley Verlag.
McHugh, M., Van Dyke, K., McClelland, M., & Moss, D. (2011). Improving Patient Flow and Reducing Emergency Department Crowding: A Guide for Hospitals. Rockville, MD: AHRQ.