Seamless Healthcare Services in the New Normal Era: Challenges for Health Teams
Abstract
Thailand's health service system has constantly developed over the past several decades to expand and provide the service covering most of its areas over the country with the intention that most citizens can thoroughly access essential health services from primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. Since health services are more accessible, people have cultivated their health literacy along with health awareness which conducted the performance of their behavior and the attitude of health care in a practical way. These have consequently encountered challenges for healthcare providers in optimizing the quality of healthcare services, especially on the topic of health equity. The traveling time from hometown to destined hospital, the insufficiency of staff and overloaded patients in health care services, the prolongation while waiting to see a doctor, as well as the erraticism of each service section, had provoked an incontiguous and ineffective outcome. The concept of seamless health services has correspondently been evoked to ensure continuity, smoothness, and healthcare safety for customers, reducing the overcrowding congestion in hospitals and prolonging the time to see doctors. According to the 20-Year National Strategy, the 2nd Strategy, which optimizing Service Excellence under the Health Service Development Plan and The Healthcare Accreditation Institute (Public Organization), has conducted the concept of seamless health services to adopt in utilizing the health services standards in hospitals in focusing on the process of patients care.
Thailand came across the period of the epidemic of Coronavirus (COVID-19) as a major and urgent threat to the population’s health as many other countries of the world's citizens had experienced. Accordingly, there is a challenge for the health team to provide health services for humankind for the ultimate effective health care along with the reliability and soundness accompanied by competent and fruitful serviceable communication and useful technology.
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