Innovation is key in hospital crisis
The critical shortage of hospital staff and facilities can be overcome through innovation, says Groote Schuur Hospital CEO Doctor Bhavna Patel.
|||Cape Town - The medical industry can stem the tide of shortage of staff and facilities through innovation, according to Groote Schuur Hospital CEO Doctor Bhavna Patel.
Patel said about R157 billion is spent on public healthcare annually in South Africa. Still, it’s not enough for hospitals like hers which has 975 beds – 900 of which are taken by gunshot wound patients each year.
She said even though the hospital’s annual budget was increased every year it had actually declined “in real terms”.
Citing Groote Schuur, where there’s a shortage of about 3762 staff members, as an example, Patel said they rely on innovation to give patients better care.
“Innovation is merely providing staff with the space to find new solutions to problems and facilitating these into action,” she said.
She called on managers to find new ways to encourage their staff members including the senior staff.
Patel said the country’s economic growth needed to be around five percent per year in order to reduce unemployment and poverty which impact heavily on public healthcare. However, at the moment it is projected that the economic growth in South Africa for 2015 will be around two percent.
She called on people to follow up South Africa’s “proud history of many firsts” such as the world’s first heart transplant that took place at Groote Schuur.
Speaking at the Hospital Association South Africa (Hasa) Summit in Cape Town, Patel said in order for innovative ideas to thrive, they must be supported. Hospitals must offer “financial and non-financial support to staff members to develop and implement innovation projects”.
She said her hospital had developed an innovation hub to stimulate creativity among staff.
Using the hub, staff had been able to come up with the Referrals Project which is a system used for streamlining the hospital’s referral system.
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