Abstract:
Ever since the emergence of human being on this earth “Health Care” has evolved and
developed substantially. Caring health of people is so crucial that substantial proportion
of government budget and individual out of pocket expenditure accounts for health care.
Health standards measured by health indicators such as life expectancy at birth, infant
mortality rate and maternal mortality rate do not increase proportionately to increments in
expenditure on health. Countries like Singapore and Republic of Korea have achieved
health standards closer to developed countries even though their expenditure on health is
not as much as developed nations. Previous researches and surveys have found that this is
due to level of education, life styles, foreign aid etc. This study evaluates the importance
of human resources of health over and above financial and physical resources in
improving health standards. Further increment of proportion of GDP spent on health is
intolerable, alternative ways have to found. The study also looks into the opportunities
available for utilising ICT in improving health standards by providing access to HR to
large community. By analysing developed and developing countries it was found that
there is a very significant positive relationship between number of physicians, nurses and
other HR and life expectancy and significant negative relationship between expenditure
and infant mortality and maternal mortality. Study revealed a significant relationship
between access to clean water and sanitation and health standards. It is concluded that
HR matters a lot more in improving health standards that financial and physical
resources. Increasing human resources takes a long time therefore other measures have to
be taken to improve health standards. It is suggested that usage of concepts like e-health
and telemedicine will remedy the issue.
