The Policy Cycle And Its Impact On Healthcare: A Sociological Perspective

Understanding the Policy Cycle in Healthcare

Discuss About The Democratic Or Rational Paradigm Revisited.

A policy cycle is a series of stages that policy makers use to design policies. It is used to define a standards process that can be followed by all policy makers to ensure that the policies they make meet the required standards. Policies have to reflect universalism since they affect a b road range of people. It is defined as a tool since it is used in analyzing policies to determine whether they meet the requirements (Cummins, 2011). The tool was designed to achieve uniformity in policy making and ensure that policy makers meet the required standards when designing policies. Here the content and the quality of the policy is determined since an iterative process is defined by the cycle. Through the tool, policy makers use each stage to identify problems that may arise and evaluate available alternatives to mitigate the situation. Since each stage is seen separately, it allows iterative working on the work to achieve the best alternative.

A policy cycle creates a common place for practitioners and other who lack experience in the field of policy to use and make appropriate policies. Research has shown that not all public servant have experience in policy making but rather the knowledge that they have in a particular field becomes blended with policy cycles to create better policies for the organization (Everett, 2016). The cycle defines the healthcare process in a simple manner that allows forming of new policies. Further, it allows those responsible for analysis and implementation to ask questions on how the process can be improved or how it meets the intended objectives since the cycle allows an iterative nature of reviewing policy elements.

Sociological issues exist within the society that people live in and have consequences that extend beyond the individual’s health. In healthcare, social determinants affect the level of access to health that an individual has and how they respond to healthcare initiatives. Therefore, sociological issues are conditions in which people are born, raised, work and live in (Pega, Valentine, Rasanathan, Hosseinpoor, & Neira, 2017). This is an understanding of the social effects that an environment has on the general health of an individual. These factors include, income, housing, employment, food, early life, social support and education. Each of these factors shapes and determines the level of access that an individual has towards healthcare since they promote or inhibit access to health.

Sociological Issues and Healthcare Policy

Sociological issues define the distribution of resources in the society and how the resources are shared amongst all participants in the society. According to Raphael (2014) the social determinants of health have a major impact on the outcome of any healthcare process. When providing healthcare it is important to understand the sociological issues that affect a population, thus the healthcare process should be designed based on the healthcare social conditions of the population. These issues influence the response to healthcare and the approach used to initiate a healthcare process. When the issues are not analyzed, disparities such as discrimination can arise within a population thus leading to poor health outcomes. These factors form the basis of policy and define the approach that practitioners use. Healthcare professional need to understand the role that each factor plays in the process of healthcare and how it creates barriers and opportunities that shape outcome.

Power is defined as the ability to influence other by exercising authority that one has over them. This is thus the ability to get someone to do what you want regardless of the situation that exists. In power relationships there are winners and losers since one has to win and another one to loose (Buse, Mays, & Walt, 2005). In healthcare policy power holders are politicians who use their political power to influence decision making and policy within healthcare. The ability to wield power and use it threatens the way policies are made within healthcare. Scholars have argued that there is no apolitical problem which means that politics controls everything in the society. Healthcare policies are prepared by healthcare professionals but must seek the authority of politicians to be ratified and made laws. On the other hand, the same power that is made by these policies must be distributed among different stakeholders in the healthcare system. 

Power struggles in the society determine the way policies are made and how they can influence the society. For example, politicians make laws that favor them, while the government seeks to ensure that policies made do not give much power and freedom to the public. The struggle between different stakeholders and who yields more power affect the society since they challenge the design, adoption and application of policy. From the pluralism view, the society consists of different interest groups that struggle to safeguard the interests that they have in healthcare policy. These struggles have both good and bad impacts on the nature of policies that are designed. Since the healthcare sector is not an independent unit but rather a functional unit of the larger component, it relies heavily on goodwill of those who yield policy powers to necessitate and streamline processes within the system.

Power Struggles and Healthcare Policy

Diabetes is a concern that affects most developed countries around globe with an increasing number of people who suffer from this conditions. The main challenge that healthcare practitioners struggle with is the management of diabetes conditions within patients. One major consideration that practitioners need to focus on is managing the condition through medication and diet (Bergman, et al., 2015). Most people find it difficult to manage their health due to diet and other lifestyle issues that the conditions creates. Policies need to focus on assisting patients to easily manage their condition.

Another important level in diabetes management is personal management of blood sugar level through self-monitoring. Patients need to understand how to monitor blood sugar levels by doing self-testing checks to determine the level of sugar in their system (Narayan, author, & Williamson, 2010). Self-testing allows patients to test the level of sugar in their system and determine whether it falls within the required standards or not.

Another area that patients need to focus on is management of other conditions that relate to diabetes. Researchers argue that the major problem in managing any healthcare condition is dealing with other conditions that arise due to the diabetic condition. Complications such as cardiovascular disease, nerve damage, kidney damage, eye damage, foot damage, skin conditions and hearing impairment which make the patient have greater risks (Palermo & Ponzini, 2010). Global campaigns must ensure that they address other conditions related to diabetes to assist patients mitigate the conditions and lead better lives.

Lastly, there is need to focus on strategies that can be used to prevent diabetes. Primary prevention mechanisms need to focus on how to prevent diabetes especially in children. In most cases, obesity is the major cause of diabetes since it creates conditions in the body that make people to easily develop this condition. Campaigns must address primary prevention strategies can be used to improve healthcare conditions easily.

Interconnected systems is the link of different processes in an organization together to improve efficiency and accountability. However, these systems can be problematic in healthcare policy making through creating challenges for policy makers since it is difficult creating a policy that cuts across all the systems. According to Fischer, Miller, & Mara (2007) healthcare system contain different systems that work together but are not directly related. This situation creates challenges in developing a policy that meets the condition of all the interconnected system. The policy has to be all-inclusive rather than independent thus making it difficult for policy makers. Policy development itself is not an easy thing and linking organizational systems together with a policy that accommodates all of them becomes a problem since each system is affected by different conditions. Policy makers struggle harmonizing policies to meet the conditions of every element of the system. Since the process is iterative, then analyzing the effects of every problem that the organizational system presents can take longer thus creating unnecessary conditions for policy makers.

Secondly, coordination of policy during implementation in interconnected systems becomes difficult for policy makers. Interconnected systems create a wide range of business outcomes that policy makers have to focus on. Since harmonizing policies to meet the organizational conditions of the system is a problem, then implementation creates more challenges for policy makers in designing an implementation strategy for the organization (Fischer, Miller, & Mara, 2007). Harmonizing the system to respond to the challenges of system implementation is also a challenge. In some conditions, the policy may require restructuring the whole system to create conditions for the new policy or it may require new adjustments to the system thus making it difficult for implementation.

References

Bergman, M., Buysschaert, M., Schwarz, P. E., Albright, A., Narayan, K. V., & Yach, D. (2015). Diabetes prevention: global health policy and perspectives from the ground. Diabetes Management, 2(4), 309–321.

Buse, K., Mays, N., & Walt, G. (2005). Making Health Policy . In N. Black, & R. Raine, Understanding Public Health (pp. 11-31). London: Mcgraw Hill.

Cummins, L. (2011). Policy Practice for Social Workers: New Strategies for a New Era. Pearson.

Everett, S. (2016). The Policy Cycle: Democratic Process or Rational Paradigm Revisited? Australian Journal of Public Administration, 76(1), 65-79.

Fischer, F., Miller, G. J., & M. S. (2007). ,Handbook of Public Policy Analysis Theory, Politics, and Method. London: Taylor & Francis Group.

Narayan, K. M., author, M., & Williamson, D. F. (2010). Prevention of Type 2 Diabetes: Risk Status, Clinic, and Community. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 25(2), 154-157.

Palermo, P. C., & Ponzini, D. (2010). The Challenges for Policy Making. Urban and Landscape Perspectives, 10, 143-151.

Pega, F., Valentine, N., Rasanathan, K., Hosseinpoor, A. R., & Neira, M. (2017). The need to monitor actions on the social determinants of health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 95(11), 784–787.

Raphael, D. (2014). Beyond policy analysis: The raw politics behind opposition to healthy public policy. Health Promotion International, 30, 380–396.