Planning and Management: Outcome Management

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Introduction

            It has taken considerable time for health and social care field to adopt the term outcome management in its daily operations. Outcome management has a lot of basis from a lot of management literature compiled by various academicians. According to Armstrong & Baron (1998) the phrase “outcome management’ got coined during the early 1970s though, it was only acknowledged as a process in the late 1980s. In the earlier period of the early 1960s outcome management was regarded as a process used to improve on staff service delivery, while the latter period of 1980s and 1990s saw outcome management used as a process to come up with relevant management paradigms through planning. These paradigms included: objective management, performance appraisal and so on. However, there exist varied definitions of outcome management.

            Consequently, outcome management involves monitoring and managing the service delivery of staff members in order to boost the general performance of a group. There is a close connection linking the performance of an association to the staff, though this relationship is complicated by different factors influenced by the external environment (Bach & Sisson 2008). To further add on that, the concept of outcome management has been evolving over time, most notably in regards to implementation. The modern day outcome management is more precise and articulate as it integrates a variety of tools that are essential in the bid to improve organizational performance through proper planning and management. The need to improve efficiency in providing health and social care services has further been accelerated by the need for incorporating outcome management in operations in the health sector. This situation is promoted by outcome management focusing on improving individual output in terms of performance.

Outcome management in health and social care services

            Despite outcome performance being an entirely new concept in providing health and social care services to the people there is significant enough literature put together over the same issues. The provision of health and social care services in the public sector is quite different from the private sectors mode of operation. The public sector is not focused on profit maximization. According to Boland & Fowler (2000) in the previous years, it was impossible to quantify desired outcomes in the health and social sector. Much has changed due to the integration of managerial reforms in the provision of health care. Even so, it should be noted that outcome management is yet to be well developed and acknowledged by health care providers. As a result, everything that encompasses outcome management should be monitored closely in order to improve the understanding of the process.

            Everything that has been stated above reflects a lot on the provision of health and social care. Only health and social care systems most especially in the European countries have adopted the process of outcome management, for example, Canada. On the other hand, outcome management in the provision of health and social care has been greatly disregarded and ignored in developing countries; this can be supported by the simple fact that there is no reference in...