Budget boost for health

The NSW Budget has provided $1.2 billion for major works at hospitals across the state. 

Hospitals across NSW have been received a billion dollar boost in the State Budget, which was handed down today.

Capital projects worth in excess of $1.2 billion will unfold across the state this year, Health Minister Jillian Skinner said. This represents an increase of 10 per cent on last year’s capital works spend.

“The capital funding provisions for health in the NSW Budget is about more than bricks and mortar – it is about building the hospitals and health care facilities our patients and staff expect and deserve,” Skinner said.

Key capital works projects for 2013-14 in the Sydney metropolitan area include: $71.1 million toward the $270 million Blacktown Mount Druitt Hospital expansion Stage 1; $49.8 million to the Campbelltown Hospital redevelopment; $40.6 million for the $120 million Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital Stage 1 redevelopment; and $29.1 million toward the development of the Northern Beaches Health Service.

Key capital works in rural and regional areas include: $32.8 million to commence construction of the new $170.1 million South East Regional Hospital in Bega; $9 million to commence the $80 million redevelopment of Kempsey Hospital; and $8.9 million to start the $80.3 million Lismore Hospital redevelopment.

Skinner said an additional $884 million will be invested in the NSW health system in 2013-14, an increase of 5.2 per cent compared to the previous year. The recurrent budget for NSW Health is now a record $17.9 billion.

The Budget allocated $220 million for an extra 69,000 emergency department attendances, an extra 34,000 patients admitted to hospital including surgery for an extra 3000 patients, extra outpatient clinic appointments and new sub-acute services.

Other Budget measures include:

• $51 million for continued and new investment to bring to market new medical research innovations and life saving devices.

• $30 million for integrated care – building new partnerships with the not-for-profit and private sector to deliver better care in the community.

• $15 million to implement the Reform Plan for the Ambulance Service of NSW, including recommendations relating to aeromedical retrieval.

• $9.2 million for 80 more clinical nurse/midwife specialists and educators, including $3 million for 30 new palliative care nurses across NSW.

 

What do you think of the Budget’s health measures? COMMENT BELOW.

Most hospitals don’t budget, plan for social media

While a majority of hospitals (nine out of 10) have jumped on the social media bandwagon, a good portion of those facilities (two-thirds) have no formal ideas for how that media should be used, a study released in January by Greystone.Net found. Some healthcare bloggers, however, fear that the number of hospitals with a plan could be even less. 

“Greystone.Net’s percentage of engaged hospitals seems overly optimistic,” said blogger Jennifer Riggle, associate vice president at PR firm CRT/tanaka, according to Healthcare IT News. “I hazard to guess that many hospitals are simply setting up Twitter accounts, posting videos on YouTube and creating Facebook pages without thinking how they can use these tools to support their service lines and improve communications with the community they serve.” 

Riggle’s concerns may be valid ones, as the study showed that Twitter, YouTube and Facebook were the most popular forms of social media used. While 92 percent of hospitals and health systems cited a desire to bring in new patients as the reasoning behind engaging in social media, just under 13 percent had any success doing so. 

The study also found that few hospitals even do so much as budgeting financially for social media, meaning most facilities currently aren’t hiring employees to handle such tasks. In fact, 70 percent of the hospitals surveyed reported that they had no more than three people dedicated to social media.