Move towards an integrated administration of hospitals

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32702, 3 September 1971, Page 2

Move towards an integrated administration of hospitals

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 2. A move towards an integrated administration of general and psychiatric hospitals was noted in eight countries visited by the Deputy Director (Administration) of the Hospitals Division of the Department of Health (Mr E. A. Kennedy). Under a World Health Organisation fellowship, he spent four months overseas studying hospital administration. and returned to Wellington this week.

“Different countries are approaching the problem in different ways,” Mr Kennedy said. “Nowhere is the process complete, but all are aware of the need for such integration.

“There is a general realisation that psychiatry should not be an isolated branch of medicine,” he said. Mr Kennedy also noted a universal desire and appreciation of the urgent need for managerial competence in hospital administration. “Everyone is concerned, just as we in New Zealand are, at the rapid increase of expenditure in hospital facilities. To make the most of available resources, you have to have top-rate management,” he said. IMPRESSIVE STRIDES It was generally felt that closer integration of all health services would enable the best use to be made of hospitals. Israel had had made impressive strides in this direction. It was eliminating waste, making great use of com-munity-based services, and

so reducing time in hospital to that required for treating the acutely ill. Britain was leading the field in the establishment of health centres. Mr Kennedy found.

Such centres were clearly advantageous to both patients and doctors. “The doc-tor-patient relationship is not disturbed in any way,” he said.

In Dublin, Mr Kennedy represented the Health De-

partment at the International Hospital Federation congress. “There, most of the papers presented dealt with increasing costs of medical services, and how to make the best use of hospital facilities,” he said. “Nurse training was also under discussion, on which there was diversity of thought. Nursing education was under the microscope in all the countries I visited, and was probably the most controversial topic.”