Patient Care – A Project Management Perspective
Dr. Deepa Bhide, PMP is a physician and currently an independent healthcare IT and project management consultant. She has a postgraduate degree in Pediatrics and Neonatology from the University of Health Sciences, India. Deepa is an advocate of using project management in healthcare and related domains. She has worked extensively in the confluence of clinical medicine, IT and project management domains with hands-on experience in managing projects from conception to closure.
Poor health puts a significant burden not only on the patient but also on the family and society at large. Diseases can deplete a patient of finances as well as impose stress on healthcare services and work productivity. In cases of chronic disease, the expenditure can be huge and cannot be sustained for a long period of time.
According to a report published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2008, the global burdenof disease is now shifting from infectious diseases to the non-communicable diseases, with chronic conditions such as heart disease, stroke, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes, contributing to the increasing mortality rate. The WHO predicts that chronic diseases will account for approximately 65% of all deaths (over 47 million deaths annually) by 2030.
Figure 1: Projected deaths by cause for high-, middle-, and low-income countries
Table 1: Leading causes of death—2004 and 2030 compared
The effective management of chronic diseases helps control the disease, slows down its progress, and prevents complications, thereby mitigating the increasing cost of the complex care of chronic diseases. The efforts being made in the management of chronic diseases are seeing a growing emphasis across the globe. To align its responses to the growing challenge of chronic diseases, on 14 December 2010 the U.S. …
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