Critically evaluate health and social care services
There is a growing demand for healthcare services and this is because there is an inevitable need for care (Stevens and Gabbay, 1991). These services are delivered as a result of a combination of inputs, including resources, organisation, funding, management and knowledge (Mills and Ransom, 2001). Whilst it being simple in principle, it is much more difficult in practice as all these factors put together make very complex healthcare systems, by the means of which health services are made viable to a population (Roemer 1991). Due to this complexity there are a high magnitude of interactions as well tasks involved in delivering quality care, which lead to errors and unreliability (Macrae, 2014). I will discuss the main factors that affect healthcare the most in this essay. ‘System’s thinking’ has been applied to healthcare in order to make it more reliable and efficient like other high risk industries. However the healthcare system is not like any other, as it is extremely complex due to its dependence on multiple interactions, procedures and technologies in order to effectively and safely conduct even a routine task (Macrae, 2014). However, this complexity is dependent on individual perception and what they consider the healthcare system to be. Runciman et al (2007) believe it to be a complex socio-technical system while others like Plsek and Greenhalgh (2001) argue that healthcare is a complex adaptive system. There is
There is a growing demand for healthcare services and this is because there is an inevitable need for care (Stevens and Gabbay, 1991). These services are delivered as a result of a combination of inputs, including resources, organisation, funding, management and knowledge (Mills and Ransom, 2001). Whilst it being simple in principle, it is much more difficult in practice as all these factors put together make very complex healthcare systems, by the means of which health services are made viable to a population (Roemer 1991). Due to this complexity there are a high magnitude of interactions as well tasks involved in delivering quality care, which lead to errors and unreliability (Macrae, 2014). I will discuss the main factors that affect healthcare the most in this essay. ‘System’s thinking’ has been applied to healthcare in order to make it more reliable and efficient like other high risk industries. However the healthcare system is not like any other, as it is extremely complex due to its dependence on multiple interactions, procedures and technologies in order to effectively and safely conduct even a routine task (Macrae, 2014). However, this complexity is dependent on individual perception and what they consider the healthcare system to be. Runciman et al (2007) believe it to be a complex socio-technical system while others like Plsek and Greenhalgh (2001) argue that healthcare is a complex adaptive system. There is