Proceedings | Operations Management area | Year 2016
 

Building sustainable service supply in primary care unit

by Phallapa Petison
  
  the 7th international Conference on operations and supply chain management

Abstract

Primary care unit (PCU) is considered very crucial part that contributed to the overall quality and efficiency success of the national health care system. The key roles of PCU is to be the first contact point that helps patient to have better quality of care with lower costs for equivalent quality as well as be a main contractor in transferring patient to the secondary and/or tertiary care units. However, in the case of developing countries, the roles and responsibilities of PCU goes beyond being a coordinator, health promotion, disease prevention whereas facing challenges in managing limited resources particular human and financial resources. Therefore this study aiming to explore how the best practices PUC strategically managing human resources for better and sustainable service provided to patient particularly in the case of remote areas. The case research method is adopted. A total of 18 health care providers and 36 patients and their family members are interviewed. To ensure validity, data triangulation is applied by interviewed various key informants not only top level management but also the middle and operational levels as well as service receiver. Research results show that long term vision of the PCU top management is a prerequisite to the success. Building strong and suitable service provider team strategies are first building “Trust” between service providers and patients. Trust can be built through enhancing competency of local human resources; creating a culture of collaborative spirit, creating continuity of service, and the use of community influencers. The second is building “Team”. This is the most important strategy for creating consensus team decision making via information sharing. In addition, having a “Case manager” and “Caregiver” also contribute to the service continuity of the family care team. The third is involving “Local community”. In order to sustain the service supply, supportive and commitment from people in the community is necessary.