Forming Health Policy: A Necessary Step for Healthy Nations - Essay Sample

Introduction

The formation of the health policy in a nation is a process that follows a specific sequence. The policies that emerge from this process will define conditions that will help improve the general health of all the residents of a country. Therefore, this policy is a set of decisions, actions, and plans that a nation intends to use to achieve required health goals in a region or society (Pillai, 2016). In a country, the process of policy development must use all relevant resources and include the necessary stakeholders for it to be successful. As Pillai (2016) stated, health policy development is an iterative cyclic process that always aims at providing the best healthcare status in a country.

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The health policy formulation process uses three key steps. The first step in this process is setting the environment for making the health policy. This stage includes an evaluation of the institutions and resources that govern, conduct, and provide healthcare to the people in a nation. This phase includes all the necessary stakeholders and decision-makers from political, economic, and social settings that will be involved in the process. In this stage, the stakeholders use identification, formulation of micro and macro policies, evaluation, and reformulation of the policies (Pillai, 2016). In this stage, both public and private entities participate in developing the appropriate policies that will help them achieve the best policies.

The second phase is methodology considerations, which focuses on the epidemiological limitations, socio-cultural issues, and evidence base of the policies. It also pays attention to political sensitiveness. Pillai (2016) said that this section also includes needs assessment that considers the needs of society while formulating these policies. It also includes an assessment of resources that also considers the gaps in the formulation of the policies. Some of these resources may be human or inventory that will help in the formulation of the policies. Finally, it may also include quantitative technique analysis, such as simulation to see the impact of the policy to see the amount of success that it will have.

The third and last phase is an analysis of the formulated policy. As initially stated, the formulation of health policies is usually a cyclic process that uses different stakeholders. Hence, at this phase, if a fault is noted in the policy, it will influence the formulation of other new guidelines. Health policies are essential aspects that help drive the development of appropriate interventions for changing healthcare in a nation (de Leeuw et al., 2014). In fact, in many cases, the changes that policies initiate usually lead to the formulation of other rules that lead to the formation of better healthcare systems in a nation.

In an international setting, the formulation of health policy depends on several factors. Firstly, it will consider the conditions in the affected countries, and it will use the discussed process. Secondly, it will have more stakeholders than the case in a single region or country. Specifically, it may include international negotiators, financiers, and other international institutions, such as the World Health Organisation (WHO). The inclusion of these stakeholders will lead to the formation of policies that will satisfy the target country and will have international standards. However, it may take an extended duration for it to reach its completion.

Assessment of How Policy Formation Is Influenced by Funding in National Context

Policy formulation process requires many resources that affect the success of the process. Some of the most needed resources include personnel that perform the appraisal and investigation into the existing policies and possible methods of improving them. If these resources are unavailable, the process may face many challenges, which can eventually end up harming it. For instance, if the process does not get adequate human resources, it may not consider all the factors that should be involved in this process, such as the socio-cultural implications of the regulations. Moreover, if the personnel is insufficient, the process may end up skipping some crucial parts of the formulation, leading to the development of regulations that fail to consider all situations.

The policy formulation process typically works towards some set goals. For instance, as Rutten et al. (2010) explained, one model, focuses on the analysis of determinants of policy impact (ADEPT) and it uses goals and the obligations of stakeholders. Therefore, if the availability of the needed resources is limited, the process may lead to the formulation of incomplete frameworks. Additionally, since it may not consider all the economic issues, it can lead to the development of policies that do not focus on all the areas of concern.

As stated earlier, the policy formulation process is highly dependent on the availability of resources, and most importantly, funds. If the process does not get all the necessary stakeholders, it may end up producing results that are not well-investigated. Moreover, in some cases, even the stakeholders involved in the process may decide to continue formulating new laws regardless of the fund's availability. On the other hand, if the funds are only available for a short while, then this availability will affect the formulation (Velez et al., 2019). Therefore, the availability and amount of funds can support or harm the formulation of new approaches. Specifically, having insufficient funds would end up harming the formulation of new approaches.

Critical Evaluation of Healthcare Policy in One Country With Examples

Formulation of health policy in some countries occurs after the emergence of a crisis in the existing system. In these nations, the system may be dependent on the ruling parties and president. Thus, when a new president takes power, he or she decides to make health a priority in that regime. A good example is that of Chile that Velez et al. (2019) discussed in their article. In this country, the factor that mainly facilitated the formulation of the health policy is the need to have a better healthcare system and insurance that would lead to universal coverage of the citizens in the country. Initially, the nation had two central health insurance systems, which were a public National Health Insurance Fund (FONOSA) and a private insurer called ISAPRES (Velez et al., 2019). The private system adjusted the premiums that people paid according to their risk. This factor made them more expensive, and the people that depended on the public system got healthcare services that were of comparatively lower quality.

In the healthcare policy formulation in Chile, several stakeholders participated in it with some of them being international, national, private companies, and the general public. These individuals and organisations created an environment that eventually led to the formulation of a health policy that advocated for universal coverage of healthcare to the citizens. Moreover, Velez et al. (2019) listed four factors that facilitated and three others that hindered the development of this system. Firstly, one of the issues that encouraged the formulation of this policy was the initiative of the elected president to develop the policy. This president had unconstrained powers, which meant that his support had a significant effect on the process (Velez et al., 2019). Secondly, the people that supported the reforms used the 'right to health' theme to gain support from others. Thirdly, some patient groups lobbied to enable the inclusion of some diseases to the plans to help improve the health of the beneficiaries. Finally, this policy agreed with the proposal of the World Bank of basic universalism (Velez et al., 2019). This support from an international external stakeholder provided increased the chances of the system succeeding.

While these four issues encouraged the formulation of the health policy, the other three issues opposed this process. The first factor was the fact that the new system sought to change an existing firm policy that had been implemented for long in the country. This factor implied that the new system intended to alter the existing resources and incentives that the system offered to relevant groups (Velez et al., 2019). Secondly, the residents of the country considered the changing of insurance from the public to the private system as being an indicator of economic status. Therefore, they did not want to implement a single system that would make all of them equal. Finally, health insurance companies did not support it since it would make them lose their market share.

An investigation of these factors in Chile provide more information regarding the situations that usually encourage and try to hinder the formulation of health policy. It shows that despite the support that the law receives, it will also receive criticism and opposition from other stakeholders. In fact, some of the opposers may be people that would benefit from the new policy. After the formulation of the new system, all the citizens in the country were guaranteed of receiving universal healthcare, which was different from the original case.

Understanding the Social and Cultural Aspects of Healthcare Policy

Analysing the Influences of Culture and Society on Healthcare

The culture of people influences their healthcare policies. This influence comes from the fact that people's culture usually acts as a template for all their social and psychological actions and processes. These factors influence the knowledge that people have, what they are willing to do to achieve better health status, and their reactions to different stimuli (Levesque & Li, 2014). For instance, people understand health and illness based on their knowledge, which depends on their cultural norms and views. People use all the new information that they receive and fit it in their existing cognitive structures. Therefore, they use their existing cultural belief to view and interpret all the information that they receive.

Several social factors determine how a person interprets information. These issues include the individual's education, religion, ethnicity, political affiliation, occupation or income, and the geographic region where the person lives. For instance, a person's education makes it possible for him or her to identify diseases much more efficiently based on its symptoms. Moreover, the evolution of these signs and the severity of the disease influences the person's inclination to seek for medication or treatment (Levesque & Li, 2014). For instance, the culture of some people influences their belief on the cause of illnesses. Some people consider them to come from individual factors, while other persons consider them to originate from natural, supernatural, or social issues (Levesque & Li, 2014). What a person believes to be the cause of his or her disease can influence the individual's actions. For instance, an individual believing that the cause of his disease is supernatural may think that he has less power towards treating it. Such a belief mainly originates from and depends on the culture of a person.

Culture impacts the decisions that a person make. This influence comes from the beliefs of an individual, which originates from the individual's culture (Yildiz et al., 2018). A person's geographic place of origin influences his or her beliefs. This impact comes from the fact that people of one geographical origin usually have similar culture, religion, and beliefs. For instance, some communities believe in traditional hea...