Evaluating the Efficiency of the Performance of Health Institutions from the Perspective of Health Personnel in the Saudi Health Sector

Abstract

1. Introduction
The health sector in Saudi Arabia is considered to be one of the largest sectors in the Arabian Gulf and the Middle East regions. The Ministry of Health in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia employs a large number of physicians, nurses, and technicians in its institutions to perform public service. Hospitals in the Saudi Kingdom are busy institutions and provide health services for all who are in need without any discrimination, most of which are non-profit institutions. The personnel employed in the Ministry of Health are considered the backbone and a very important element for these hospitals, and their job is of utmost importance to fulfill the objectives of such institutions. Definitely, the performance of these hospitals is influenced by the services provided by these health personnel, and as such, hospital performance is often judged by patients and diverse direct customer categories, including regulatory agencies.
Health management is one of the most complicated management tasks, and simply being a physician does not imply the capability to manage health institutions. The management of health institutions is considered extremely important, in view not only of its complex management nature, organization, and staffing specificities, which go beyond common company administrative management, but also because it works with one of society’s main goods and at the highest relevance, human health. It is also important to build a healthy and motivated team that enjoys teamwork and mutual respect and to have a hierarchy of leadership, which entrusts and includes its team as part of the day-to-day process of any hospital. The products of health institutions are not tangible often; their quality is difficult to assess, and the final results are only significantly measurable in the long term. Optimum planning at the individual level and between the main provider of care system initiatives is crucial to avoid the development and strengthening of resisting groups in the overall effort towards effective hospital management.
Methods
The method adopted in this study dealt with the description and analysis of the viewpoints of health personnel working within health institutions. The study sought to achieve its goals by adopting a methodology that relied upon data derived from questionnaires distributed to health personnel working within regions that were chosen according to systematic stratified random sample dimensions. The data survey in this study was designed to provide specific insights regarding both the readiness of the health systems and the views of those who worked within it about the quality of its performance. The Saudi Ministry of Health supports large numbers of health institutions falling under its umbrella and offering various levels of health care in different geographical areas across the kingdom. In the Eastern Province, the need to understand the readiness of health systems serving the residents was imperative due to the full implementation of the family medicine model, which was one of the main initiatives of the country’s Health Transformation Program.
Conclusion
The conclusion section presents a summary of the study findings and an explanation of the implications, contributions, limitations, and directions for future research. The results of the study added value to the area of performance evaluation of health institutions at the institutional level and in light of the weaknesses identified in performance measurement systems in previous studies. Additionally, this study investigated the performance of health institutions from the health personnel's perspective and developed reliable and valid measures of the performance of health institutions. The results of this study emphasized the importance of improving the performance evaluation of medical centers to ensure they offer high-quality health services that are safe, effective, and patient-centered. These issues are important and are in line with healthcare quality standards and the UAE national agenda to achieve world-class healthcare services and quality standards, especially in health institutions.
The results of this research suggest the significance of the impact of the quality of work life and organizational support on the performance of health personnel, and on how management in health institutions can use the study's results pre-hiring and post-hiring to improve the performance of its health personnel. Moreover, the study developed a reliable, valid, and practical measurement instrument. This study has provided directives for setting policies intended to preserve the efficiency of medical centers and other health institutions by targeting health personnel and improving their performance. The study's findings were based on data collected from a population including all the healthcare professionals at government-owned hospitals and health centers. The study emphasizes that the results may be interpreted properly in the public sector and may not be expanded to the private sector. The private health sector in the UAE is usually based on staff of specific nationalities, which are different from the nationalities of the health workforce in this study. Additionally, the sample size is limited to respondents from the UAE. A larger sample size that targets diverse demographics would enhance the generalizability of the results. In conclusion, the performance evaluation of health institutions is extremely sensitive to healthcare quality. Hence, the healthcare system should put extra effort into perfecting each health institution's performance to achieve healthcare quality standards and be competitive with international healthcare services.