Explaining Resource Allocation in Board of Trustees Hospitals: A Case Study of Afzalipour Medical Center in Kerman, Iran

Journal Title: Evidence Based Health Policy, Management & Economics - Year 2018, Vol 1, Issue 4

Abstract

Background: The main resources of health care are allocated to hospitals. However, resource bottlenecks are a challenge faced by health systems around the world, especially in developing countries such as Iran. Inefficiencies in resource allocation can increase the constraints in double fold. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the allocation of financial resources in one of the hospitals of the board of trustees, Afzalipour Medical Center, Kerman, Iran in 2014. Methods: Review of documents, two deep interviews and five focus group discussions with eleven experts were used to collect data in the present qualitative study. Participants were members of the board of trustees and representatives of the financial department of the hospital. Data were then analyzed using content analysis method. Results: Based on the present study, four main themes and ten sub-themes were identified, with main themes including decision-making reference, process, criteria and factors influencing decision-making. In this regard, there was no clear process and criteria for allocating resources at this center, and allocation of resources was done based on a reactive approach, response to critical situations, political currents and financial bottlenecks. Contrary to the potential capacity of the structure of board of trustees, in practice, headship and management played a key role in allocating financial resources. Conclusion: The process of allocating financial resources in the investigated hospital follows a less rational approach and coincided with the chaos theory and the garbage can model of decision-making in the governmental bureaucratic structure. The governmental bureaucratic structure and the board of trustees structure (decentralization) in contrast to each other have led to a disorder, where the lack of transparency in determining goals, criteria and document performance have also exacerbated this disorder. In this regard, the oil-related budget has stabilized the inappropriate allocation of resources.

Authors and Affiliations

Mohammad Hossein Mehrolhassani, Vahid Yazdi-Feyzabadi, Hossein Saberi, Marzieh Lashkari

Keywords

Related Articles

Developing Appropriate Indications for Prescriptions of Brain MRI using RAND Appropriateness Method

Background: Evidence Based Medicine can be define as the process of systematically finding, critically appraising, and using recently published researches as a basis for making decisions regarding individual patients.One...

Prediction of Patient Readmission by LACE Index components at Cardiac Care Unit of an Iranian Hospital: A Cohort Study

Background: One approach to improve efficiency in health care is to identify patients with high risks of readmission so that resources should be distributed in a way they would benefit targeted care. A model named LACE (...

Socioeconomic Inequality in Health Care Utilization: A Study of Service Utilization in Yazd, Iran

Background: Determining the inequality in health and the gap level among various socio-economic groups and factors affecting it were always concerns of most politicians and social scientists. This study investigated ineq...

Organizational Determinants of Mental Health among Hospital Clinicians

Background: Bringing the psychologically unhealthy personnel is one of the organizational damages and is considerable for organizations like the hospitals which deal with life and health of the people. This study was aim...

Explicit Priority Setting Approaches in Health Care Coverage Policies: A Critical Review and Implications for Further Research

Background: Several explicit approaches are used to make decision on health services coverage and to develop the basic health package. In this study, first the approaches used to prioritize health services were introduce...

Download PDF file
  • EP ID EP328367
  • DOI -
  • Views 152
  • Downloads 1

How To Cite

Mohammad Hossein Mehrolhassani, Vahid Yazdi-Feyzabadi, Hossein Saberi, Marzieh Lashkari (2018). Explaining Resource Allocation in Board of Trustees Hospitals: A Case Study of Afzalipour Medical Center in Kerman, Iran. Evidence Based Health Policy, Management & Economics, 1(4), 231-242. https://europub.co.uk/articles/-A-328367