HEALTH

ENTREPRENEURSHIP, INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY.

A PATH TO SUSTAINABILITY AS HEALTH PROFESSIONALS.

                               Aloyce P. Urassa 

The World is fully of challenges as well as opportunities. Health being one of the very challenged sectors creates a need for strategic plans and visions by really people. Being creative and innovative is among the core values that any health professional who is really focused, determined and passionate should posses. Health practitioners are called to be realistic and able to cope with the complexity of the health system.  Becoming a health professional is merely being a people’s servant than just an employee. Health is a carrier that needs passion, readiness, enough skills and knowledge. It is an opportunity from God for one to stand between life and death of an individual. Being realistic in practice is the best feature that one needs to posses to lead to excellence and Godly rewards.

Why do we need sustainability as health professionals?

On 20^th March 2017, The Citizens magazine published a research report from Muhimbili University(MUHAS) and California University titled “HALF OF YOUNG DOCTORS TO QUIT BY 2025”. This is very alarming news for any passionate healthcare practitioners as the existing gap will be broadened instead of being mitigated. Healthcare is always needed and will always be a demand to our communities. Despite the tremendous emergence of artificial intelligence still human intelligence will be required to set the procedures and deal with abnormalities.

  Some people look artificial intelligence in healthcare as a threat but it is actually an opportunity rather than a threat since it gives room for creativity and innovations. Machines are made by human beings hence cannot easily replace our roles. We are called to be design thinkers to create best strategies to compete in the changing areas of healthcare. We should never give up and run. Machines can’t do researches, machines can’t give advice and counseling to clients, they either cannot determine the presence of an abnormality apart from what they are set to solve. Human intelligence will always be required. Currently the doctors to patient ratio in Tanzania is 1:20000 as published by Voice of Africa news on March 2017 while the WHO recommendation is 1:1000 meaning that we need to sail our ship 20x more to fill the gap, Ratio of Health laboratory staff for 10,000 population is 0.49 while that of pharmacy is 0.15 according health sector performance report on 2015. All these proves that a gap still exist in healthcare but it needs creative, innovated and well determined individuals to cope up with.

THERE ARE THINGS WE NEED TO CONSIDER AND IMPLEMENT IN ORDER SUSTAIN OUR DREAMS AS HEALTH PRACTITIONERS.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

 It is true that everyone needs to do something that will render him/her peace in everyday life. There are things we basically need in everyday life such as food, clothes and shelter, if one lack satisfaction in either of these will merely be in struggles. Health practitioners have to set a means to ensure that they can balance their everyday struggles with healthcare delivery. Entrepreneurship can be a good strategy towards this. We are to enterprise stratagems that will help us generate income without affecting the needs of the clients. To become an entrepreneur doesn’t necessarily mean that one shouldn’t be employed. As health practitioners there is ability to notice the gaps existing in the health industry. These gaps need solutions to be fixed. Health entrepreneurs are highly needed to bridge the gaps by taking risk to invest in health sector. Collective funding could be a best strategy to take towards investing in health services. Two or more people could join and form a group then raise funds together to start small then grow step by step. Cooperation among entrepreneurs and stakeholders is a path to excellence. Entrepreneurship will lead towards income generation hence stability in service provision. We do not need to move out of health sector for the reason of finance rather we should think beyond to solve the problem within.

INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY.

The need of change creates the need of an idea; the need of an idea demands strategic plan for implementation. To design an idea one needs to be innovative, creative and design thinker. Innovation is one of the core values that an entrepreneur needs to have. Innovation and creativity is a way towards entrepreneurship. In order for one to take risk towards an idea he/she must have unique ways to work on the case, that is innovation. One must design mechanisms to approach the opportunity and make it sustainable, easy and accessible; that is creativity, “Innovation isn’t about adding more bells and whistles. It’s about making tools we design as possible” Rasu Shrestha MD, MBA, CIO. As healthcare practitioners we have to ensure that we clear eyes to see gaps and design means to approach and solve and not withdrawing from the sector. Innovation could both render solutions to mitigate challenges faced generally in health but also opportunity to investors, entrepreneurs, stakeholders and practitioners.

RESEARCH, TRAININGS AND CONFERENCES

Health practitioners should also engage more in research programs. Again to conduct a research, one needs to be innovative and design thinker so as to come up with ideas on what, where and why to conduct a certain research. It is through research that we can easily observe the gaps in details. Research will also help in solution provision in healthcare delivery.

Trainings and conferences are places of knowledge sharing and discussions among healthcare practitioners or leaders. It is also a place to share understanding on gaps and opportunities available in healthcare. Through trainings people make several connections and motivate each other to remain and work more effectively in health sector. Therefore, students and health practitioners should organise and participate in as many conferences as possible.

   CONCLUSION.

Health sector is of paramount importance in our communities and the world in general. Great changes, modifications, renovation and innovation are highly needed to keep it much better. Human resource is inevitable to ensure such changes and sustainability. “If not you, who will do it?”

REFFERENCE

1.     SHRESTHA R, 2018: STRATEGIC INNOVATION IN HEALTHCARE, Published by magazine for health leadership RSNA edition.

2.     Stephen A., Jonathan S. et al: Moving from compliance to competency, A harmonized core competency framework for the clinical research professional, June, 2014

3.     Plsek P. 1999.  Innovative thinking for improvement of medical systems. Available at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10498516/ Accessed July 2^nd 2019.

4.     THE CITIZEN: HALF OF YOUN DOCTORS TO QUIT BY 2025:report (2017) retrieved from http://www.thecitizen.co.tz /News/Half-of-young-doctors-to-youquit-by-2025--report/1840340-3856488-view-asAMP-hp3qd0/index.html