Good Example Of Essay On Health Care Facility Project Review

Introduction

In recent times, there has been an increased need for end-user friendly health care facilities. The end-user friendly healthcare facilities take into consideration the end-users of the facility thus addressing their needs effectively and efficiently. Such facilities are of great significance since they ensure a number of benefits to all the health care stakeholders, the community, and staff. Gokhale & Gormley (2013) states that a well-designed and equipped health facility is second to an adequately trained health workforce. It implies that the health care facility and the health care workforce determine the quality and type of health care offered to the community. In order for the health care facility fully satisfy the needs of all the stakeholders that use it, the individual needs of each stakeholder must be put into consideration. In regards to the issues mentioned above, this paper provides a framework and proposes some guidelines that will be of significance in developing health facilities projects. The health facility projects will, for this reason, be appropriate for the different stakeholders, thus ensuring the effectiveness of the health care facilities.

Need Identification Process

The efficiency of the health care facility depends on its ability to meet the specific needs of different stakeholders it serves. It is, for this reason, important to identify and consider the different groups of people the health care facility will be serving once in operation. This process usually marks the first step in the need identification process for a health care facility project. Once the different groups are identified, their different needs can be established through different data collection methods. Some of the groups of people that should be considered in the development of a health care facility include the general needs of the facility. Also, some of the groups include needs of its staff, and those of the community (Guenther & Vittori, 2008).
The second and most significant step in the identification of stakeholders’ needs for a health care facility project is the determination of factors affecting the facility’s operation. The factors affecting the operation of the health care facility may be internal or external. Internal factors may include all the negative and positive factors that are generated from within the organization. For this reason, the internal factors affecting the operation of the health care facility may be as a result of the facility’s operation, staff, and management. The internal factors that affect the operation of the health care facility are mostly influenced by the needs of the facility and staff.
In order to identify the internal factors, thus addressing the general needs of the facility and the needs of staff, there should be an analysis of the internal environment. The analysis of the internal environment will consider the influence of management, leadership style, control of strategic resources, management hierarchy, skills and expertise of staff, and involvement of staff in strategy implementation. The influence of management can help in establishing the health care facility’s legal hierarchy and control of resources, which ensures smooth operation of the facility. Control of the strategic resources involves the allocation and equipping of the health care facility (Green, Bowie, & McGraw, 2011).
It is also of great significance to consider the external factors that affect the operation of the health care facility, thus identifying needs of external stakeholders. Some of the external factors affecting the operation of a health care facility that need consideration may include socio-cultural factors, environmental factors, and social-economic factors. Social-cultural factors include a specific community’s customs, values, lifestyles that characterize a society. Some of the socio-cultural factors that should be considered when identifying the needs for stakeholders served by the health care facility include education, law and politics, technology, social demographics, values, and attitudes.
Society Demographics is one of the most important factors to consider when identifying needs of the stakeholders to be served by the health care facility. Demographics is the distribution and population of the different age-groups and genders within a society. In identifying the needs of the society, it is, therefore, important to identify the society’s demographics. It is because the information is important in designing a facility that will serve all ages and genders of that society efficiently.
Laws, regulations, and politics also affect the operation of the health care facility. These include policies that are set to govern the operation, design and construction of a health care facility. Once put into consideration, the needs and requirements of the law can be met in designing the health care facility (Kobus, 2008).

Needs that should be addressed

There should be well-defined criteria for establishing the needs that need to be addressed with urgency and the needs that should wait to be addressed at a later date. In most cases, it is usually impossible to address all the needs that have been identified. It is, for this reason, advisable to establish the needs that should be addressed and those that can’t be addressed or should not be addressed at that time. Some of the factors that should be considered in addressing the identified needs include the need’s urgency, sensitivity, and impact on the community.
After the need has been identified, its urgency should be established and compared to the urgency of other needs. Needs that are more urgent should be considered over those that are not as urgent. The sensitivity of the identified need refers to its importance to the society. A need that has been established to be more sensitive should always be considered over those that are less sensitive. Similarly, needs that may cause a greater impact on the community should be considered over needs that would cause a negligible impact.

Conclusion

Healthcare facilities should be designed and constructed to fit the requirements of various stakeholders and meet the specific needs of the different groups for them to be user-friendly effectively. In order for the healthcare facilities to adequately address the needs of the different groups, the designers of the facilities must identify the different needs that should be addressed. This situation calls for a needs identification procedure that involves identification of the different groups that are served by the healthcare facility. Also, it needs identification of the factors affecting the needs and arranging the needs according to their importance, sensitivity, and urgency.
It can be established that not all needs can be addressed in the design of the healthcare facility project. It is as a result of financial and another resource constraint. Other factors may also determine whether the need should be addressed at the time of design of the facility project or a later date.

References

Gokhale, S. & Gormley, T. (2013). Construction Management of Healthcare Projects. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Guenther, R. & Vittori, G. (2008). Sustainable Healthcare Architecture. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
Green, M. A., Bowie, M. J., & McGraw, S. L. (2011). Essentials of health information
management: Principles and practices. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.
Kobus, R. (2008). Building Type Basic for Healthcare Facilities. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.