Health reform refers to changes in health administration, health planning, and health research that place significant emphasis on local health challenges aimed at improving health administration, health planning, and health care. Their combination will create an effective health care delivery model capable of increasing the physical, medical and psychological safety of patients. Health care reform should be guided by empirical data, best practices, and evidence-based practice. Various health statistics; such as mortality, manpower requirements, technology performance and patient satisfaction; should be analyzed and used in strengthening health systems.
The Ministry of Health operates operational supervision over five regional health authorities. They are North West Regional, North Central Regional, East Regional, South West Regional and Tobago Regional. The Southwest, Northwest, and North Central are the largest regions; each serving the medical needs of more than three hundred thousand people.
A significant reform should be the specialization of the Ministry of Health on fewer functions in order to improve the efficiency of the health sector. For example, it may focus on data compilation and analysis. It should be staffed by health professionals tasked with analyzing changes in epidemiology and trends in morbidity and mortality. Furthermore, the Ministry of Health should have the authority to order regional authorities to implement system changes and resource changes based on collected and analyzed statistics. Regional authorities should be mandated to provide health-based statistics to the Ministry of Health on a quarterly basis. The Ministry of Health must maintain general supervision over regional authorities. It should produce annual reports based on its own monitoring and evaluation of systems, performance and challenges in each region. Financial statements and audits should be submitted annually to the Ministry of Health and factors causing deviations should be justified. Recommendations should be made for the improvement and incidence of prosecuted white collar crimes.
In addition, regional authorities should have the authority to ensure that all healthcare institutions and providers adhere to national accreditation standards. The Ministry of Health should be entrusted with the responsibility of developing national accreditation standards in all aspects of the operation of health facilities. These should include hospitals, pharmacies, private practice. Conventional and alternative medicines should also be subject to accreditation standards. All and every healthcare institution should be subject to accreditation standards comparable to those in more developed countries such as Canada and the United States.
It is palpable that the boundaries of individual regional authorities are redefined so that they are almost equally numerous. Currently, the South West Regional has just over half a million people. Therefore, due to limited resources, it cannot be expected to operate with the greatest efficiency. Since the better medical facilities are located in the urban centers, this would be a challenge that needs to be tackled judiciously. To accommodate this reform, regional authorities should initiate joint public-private partnerships in providing health centers in rural and other areas that are less accessible to large hospitals and health centers.
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