Saving the Healthcare Dollar

The cost of healthcare is rising. New and expensive treatments, longer life expectancy and an ageing population are developing into a tsunami which threatens to flatten the health budget of first world economies.

Already we are feeling the effects of this.

WA health budget cuts will hit system struggling to meet demand

At the coalface in the emergency department we are being told by our hospital administrators that the health budget cuts must be passed on. We are to find increased productivity and efficiency with no increase in staffing numbers – in fact staff must be cut to achieve budgets constraints. Do more with less staff is the message being received in emergency departments around the country. All this is against a background of fewer hospital beds, reduced surge capacity and cuts to outpatient services.

This is happening not just in Australia; the escalating healthcare budgets and resource restrictions are also a major issue facing the UK and US.

A great deal of thought is being channeled into this very problem by some clever people. Although I do not consider myself one of those, I think I might have an idea which could potentially save the healthcare budget while having no negative impact on the excellent clinical service and quality patient care that we pride ourselves on in this Nation’s emergency departments.

Before congratulating me, I must concede that this solution unfortunately does involve staffing cuts. I can see no alternative course of action to achieve the desired result. Take a look at the graph below and you are sure to identify the solution yourselves.

For more information and an interesting opinion on this subject, I recommend reading the following editorial by David Oliver published in the BMJ last month.

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