Improving Medical Workforce Performance in Australia Report

Executive Summary

The workforce in the Australian medical field faces a lot of problems, which are mainly caused by human resource issues as regards the way it hires, develops and retains the workforce in the medical field. The health care workforce consists of doctors, general practitioners, and specialists; the issues require the intervention of the government as well as non-governmental organisations. This report outlines the issues and presents the HR strategies, which can be used to deal with them. The information regarding the HR problems and strategies will be collected from academic literatures, including journal articles and books.

Introduction

Purpose of the Report

The medical field is one of the departments that are regarded as very important. Even though the medical field is not a profit making sector, it certainly is quite beneficial to the government as it looks into the health of the Australian citizens. For that reason, the field requires support from the government as well as from non-governmental organisations. It is evident that the workers in the medical field face a lot of problems while going about their business. The main cause of the problems in the health sector is doctor’s shortage. The main purpose of this report is outlining the problems concerning attracting and retaining quality doctors, and proposing the ways in which they can be solved.

Background Information

The workforce in the medical field in Australia comprises of doctors, general practitioners, and specialists. The general practitioners are the individuals who are mandated to look into the primary medical care of the Australians. The practitioners have the right to refer patients with special conditions to doctors or specialists, depending on the seriousness of their illnesses. The number, distribution and the balance of the workforce in the field are the main factors that affect the efficiency of the workforce. The Australian health workforce is composed of practitioners of different ages and is quite effective at attending to their patients. Most of the practitioners have great experience in the field of medicine and could be highly efficient were it not for their small number.

Scope and Focus of the Report

The scope of this report is to assess the issues that surround the attempts of the government and stakeholders in the medical field in attracting, developing and maintaining quality medical practitioners. The focus is to suggest ways through which human resource strategies can be employed in the field to ensure that a sufficient number of quality practitioners are hired and maintained to provide the best health care services to the citizens of Australia.

Structure of the Report

The information will be collected from academic literatures such as books and scholar articles. The report will then present the findings, which will include the issues that affect the medical workforce and the strategies that have been put in place to deal with them. The last part, the conclusion and recommendation section, will be an outline of the major issues within the report and other strategies that the stakeholders need to incorporate into the medical field to improve the performance of the health workers.

Research Method

The problems facing the workforce in the medical field began a long time ago. The problems have existed for years despite several interventions that the government and other stakeholders have tried to employ (Buchbinder & Sharks, 2012). For that reason, the information regarding the issues in the field is available in scholarly articles such as books and Australian journal articles. Consequently the main research method in the report will be literature review. The required information will be collected from books and journal articles that have been published in Australia.

The data collected in this case will be both qualitative and quantitative, but much of it will be qualitative. Since there have been several works that address the topic of the workforce problems in medical field, there will be sufficient information that will be used to address the topic. The information will be thoroughly examined and evaluated to ensure validity and reliability (Buchbinder & Sharks, 2012). The information will be used in presenting reliable findings and in drawing conclusions that relate to the topic. The recommendations will also be presented based on the information gathered.

Findings

Shortage of Medical Practitioners

There seems to be an acute shortage of the medicals practitioners in Australia as indicated by the literature review. The ratio of doctors, general practitioners and specialists to general citizens is below the standards recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The ration that exists on the ground is 200 to 10,000 for general practitioners, 100 to 100,000 for doctors, and about 40 to 10,000 for specialists. The World Health Organisation recommends that the ratio of general practitioners to the general population be at least 1,000 to 10,000, 500 to 10,000 for doctors and 200 to 10,000 for specialists.

There are several factors that have led to the shortage of the medical practitioners in Australia. The HR strategies used in the recruitment and retaining the workforce in the medical field are weak and sometimes ineffective. The remuneration packages that are offered to the practitioners are unattractive and for that reason, they de-motivate other potential workers from joining the field (Young, Bartram, Stanton, & Leggat, 2010). The workers also live in poor conditions and this makes it difficult for other qualified individuals to seek jobs opportunities in the Australian medical field (Buchbinder & Sharks, 2012).

In addition to the unappealing remuneration and poor living standards, there are also other issues that affect the workforce in the medical field, which result in the shortage. The medical department employs poor, old and ineffective methods to attract, develop, and maintain the health workforce to carry out services in the medical field (Buchbinder & Sharks, 2012). If the department was to improve in the three human resource strategies, the shortage of medical practitioners would be solved completely (Young, Bartram, Stanton, & Leggat, 2010).

Issues in Attracting Effective Medical Practitioners

Financial awards in form of salaries are important in attracting doctors and other medical practitioners to offer their services in the field. However, financial compensation is not sufficient in attracting the practitioners. The compensation needs to be combined with other factors to come up with a long-term solution in attracting and retaining workforce in the medical field (Barnett, Patrickson, & Maddern, 2007). However, the government has been relying on financial compensation as the only way to attract qualified doctors to join the medical field (Sorensen & Ledema, 2008).

• The other issue the medical practitioners are not happy with is poor resource planning. Human resource planning not only influences the way an organization is run but also determines its success (Buchbinder & Sharks, 2012). Poor HR planning in the medical field has led to poor budgeting for recruitment, training and development procedures, which makes it difficult for the medical department to achieve its targets and goals. Poor HR planning in the medical field can be seen in issues such as increased absenteeism, stress, and internal conflicts among medical practitioners (Snell & Bohlander, 2013).
• Poor recruitment strategy is another issue that affects the way qualified medical practitioners are attracted into the field (Snell & Bohlander, 2013). The medical department in most cases relies on hiring qualified practitioners with at least two years of experience. It is expensive to hire doctors and other practitioners with many years of experience as they demand large amounts of remuneration as salary (Deadrick & Gibson, 2009).
• The HR department within the medical field experiences various problems in selecting the individuals to join the medical workforce (Deadrick & Gibson, 2009). Apart from the high academic qualifications expected of the recruits, the potential workers intending to join the team of medical practitioners are required to have vast experience (Schermerhorn et al., 2011). It is at times difficult to have people with this kind of experience who will be willing to accept the modest salaries offered by the government (Schermerhorn et al., 2011).

Issues in Developing Effective Medical Practitioners

It is important to develop an effective workforce in every field to ensure that the employees offer the best services possible to the customers. The medical field is no exception to this as the doctors also require such development to facilitate them to offer high-quality medical services to the Australians. The main issues surrounding the development of the employees in the medical field are lack of employee orientation, lack of employee training and development, and lack of career planning and development (Deshpande, 2009).

• Lack of sufficient training for the medical practitioners is another major problem that hinders their growth. The medical department does not have any proper programs that can enable the practitioners to at least further their education and skills (Deshpande, 2009). The medical field also fails to provide equal chances for the doctors to go for further education even in cases where they are willing to sponsor themselves (Nkomo, Fottler, & McAfee, 2011).
• The medical field in Australia also lacks programs for helping the doctors to plan and develop their careers. Once doctors have been recruited into the workforce, there are no other motivational services that they can enjoy when working in the medical department apart from the financial compensation they get (Dollard, LaMontagne, Caulfield, & Blewett, 2007).

Issues in Maintaining Effective Medical Practitioners

It is also a big problem for the medical department to maintain the employed doctors in better working conditions to encourage them to provide the best medical services to the Australian citizens. The department might be finding it difficult if not expensive to provide the practitioners with attractive and motivational services to ensure quality services. The main problems concerning the maintenance strategy are the poor management of the employee retention programs and improper supervision of the employee turnover (Millmore, 2007).

• Employee retention is an effective HR strategy that is used by most organisations to enhance the performance of their employees. The companies that retain most of their employees are able to improve their overall performance. The retaining strategy gives employees a sense of belonging and as a result, the employees feel motivated and are always willing to give their best. Unfortunately, this is not the case in the medical department, where the medical practitioners are retrenched without any apparent reasons (Millmore, 2007).
• Employee turnover in the medical field refers to the way doctors and other practitioners are replaced with other practitioners for various reasons. A high rate of employee turnover is quite costly as recruiting new employees may mean that the organisation has to incur expenses such as those of advertisement, and training and orientation of the new employees. This is the case in the medical department where the doctors keep on quitting their jobs as a result of the unattractive salaries (Millmore, 2007).

Government’s Interventions in Relation to the Above Issues

The government has and is still implementing a number of strategies to help the medical field deal with the issues pertaining to the attraction, development and maintenance of doctors and other medical practitioners. The government has certainly realised the importance of the medical practitioners in the country and now wants the doctors to be treated like the other very important persons in the country.

Some of the government strategies include:

• The first policy that the government has implemented to see into the issues is an improved HR planning in the medical field. The policy ensures that the top officials in the field develop plans in which every doctor is given time to further his education and skills. The policy also ensures that every doctor is only assigned the work that they are able to handle comfortably to avoid overworking him or her (Harris, 2006).
• The second policy that the government has put in place is the training and development of each doctor. The government has been offering financial loans to doctors who want to go for further education. The government also offers scholarships to doctors who excel in academics and the medical practice to enable them develop their career further. The strategy is intended to ensure that all the willing medical practitioners are given a chance to develop their career (Harris, 2006).
• Unlike the way it used to be in the past, the government has now implemented better contracts with the practitioners. The contracts ensure that every doctor is hired for not less than ten years. This is particularly good for doctors as it prevents their unfair dismissal as it used to be in the past. It is also important for the medical sector as it helps to reduce cases of workforce turnover (Harris, 2006).

Human Resource Strategies for Attracting, Developing and Maintaining the Medical Practitioners

There are several HR strategies that can be implemented to help address the issues affecting the attraction, development and maintenance of medical practitioners. The most effective HR strategy in the case of attracting the medical practitioners is that related to their recruitment. The medical department should embark on thorough recruitment of qualified medical personnel to help in reducing the current shortage (Maddern, Courtney, Montgomery, & Nash, 2006). Some of the recruitment requirements should be deleted to ensure that more individuals qualify for the positions. For example, new doctors should solely be hired based on academic qualifications and not experience.

The department should offer training to the newly employed doctors to equip them with the practices of the field. The department should set programs that will ensure that the recruits are taken through proper trainings. This strategy will help the department to prevent cases in which doctors are fired due to underperformance, which in most cases, is caused by lack of training. It is also cheaper for the medical department to train its doctors taking into consideration the cost it incurs in hiring doctors who are already trained (Hernandez & Connor, 2010).

The medical department can also employ proper management of employee turnover as a means of maintaining the doctors within the field. The department should concentrate on retaining the old doctors as opposed to hiring new ones whenever the old ones make mistakes. The department should establish a special commission, which will be looking into the doctor’s problems and solving them (Maddern, Courtney, Montgomery, & Nash, 2006). This is the only way that the health care sector can effectively manage its employee turnover.

Recommendations

This report recommends the followings as strategies that the medical department should adopt in its attempt to hire and retain effective doctors:

• The medical department should implement the HR strategies outlined in the report to help it address the problems the health sector faces in attracting, developing and retaining quality practitioners.
• To attract more doctors, the health care sector should concentrate on developing effective HR planning and recruitment for the practitioners.
• In developing effective doctors, the health care sector should employ more training and orientation of the recruits.
• The medical department should also employ more qualified HR personnel to assist it in managing the aspects of the practitioners’ retention and turnover.

Conclusion

The medical field in Australia is affected by HR issues especially in attracting, developing and retaining quality doctors. The government through the medical department has been trying to solve the problems to help the practitioners offer better services to the public. Some of the strategies that the government implemented include hiring doctors on long-term contracts and offering training to medical recruits. The report recommends other strategies for dealing with the issues such as setting aside more finances for the training of more doctors and employment of qualified HR managers.

References

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Buchbinder, S. B., & Sharks, N. H. (2012). Introduction to health care management. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Deadrick, D. L., & Gibson, P. A. (2009). Revisiting the research-practice gap in HR: A longitudinal analysis. Human Resource Management Review, 19(2), 144-153.

Deshpande, S. V. (2009). The global meltdown: HR issues, strategies and challenges. Mangalmay Journal of Management & Technology, 3(1), 37-45.

Dollard, M. F., LaMontagne, A. D., Caulfield, N., & Blewett, V. (2007). Job stress in the Australian and international health and community services sector: A review of the literature. International Journal of Stress Management, 4(4), 417-445.

Harris, M.G. (2006). Managing Health Services: Concepts and Practice (2^nd ed.). Sydney, NSW: Elsevier.

Hernandez, S. R., & Connor, S. J. (2010). Strategic human resources management in health services organizations. Clifton Park, NY: Cengage Learning.

Maddern, M., Courtney, M., Montgomery, J., & Nash R. (2006). Strategy and organisational design in health care, in M.G. Harris and Associates (2006) Managing Health Services: Concepts and practice (2^nd ed.). Sydney, NSW: Elsevier.

Millmore, M. (2007). Strategic human resource management: Contemporary issues. Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall.

Nkomo, S. M., Fottler, M. D., & McAfee, R. B. (2011). Human resource management applications. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.

Schermerhorn, J., Davidson, P., Poole, D., Simon, A., Woods, P., & Chau, S. (2011). Human Resource Management, in Management (4^th ed.). Stafford, QLD: John Wiley and Sons.

Snell, S., & Bohlander, G. (2013). Managing human resources (16^th ed.). Andover: Cengage Learning.

Sorensen, R., & Ledema, R. (2008). Managing clinical processes. Sydney, NSW: Elsevier.

Young, S., Bartram, T., Stanton, P., & Leggat, S. (2010). High performance work systems and employee well-being: A two stage study of a rural Australian hospital. Journal of Health Organisation and Management, 24(2), 182-199.