Management is the process of mobilizing a variety of essential resources in support of an objective or goal. This process is usually subdivided into functions, components or steps. The book Basic Health Planning Methods identifies six steps as a basis for planning and managing health activities:
2) Consider alternate Courses of Action
3) Determine priorities
4) Promote
5) Implementation
6) Evaluate
Management Sciences for Health (MSH) in their book Managing
Drug Supply helps to resolve the problem of planning paralysis by limiting
the planning/management process to three phases - planning, implementation
and evaluation. The MSH model suggests that the planning process should
"resemble a progressively enlarging spiral. Initial planning cycles are
quite small in time and scope. Implementation occurs in small increments
that allow rapid evaluation and quick adjustment of plans. The experience
gained is thus incorporated into subsequent cycles."
Another approach to both management and research is Operations Research which as developed by the PRICOR project (Primary Health Care in Operations Research) comprises the steps of Problem Analysis, Solution Development and Solution Validation.Problem analysis and solution development equate more or less to the planning stage of the MSH spiral model and the first four steps of the health planning and management model. Operations research can become an effective managment tool to resolve problems encountered in day to day health service delivery.
All of the above planning and management processes consist
of comparable components, and, as your might already suspect, also parallel
the creative process and the learning process. This may be illustrated
in the following table:
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