Rapid increase in expenditure, and the impact of COVID 19, is straining healthcare systems worldwide.  In response we are seeing complicated funding models aimed at cost containment, and clinicians being asked to change their practices so that services remain viable. While this has the potential to lead to improved practice it may also create perverse incentives, and drive provision of care which is financial, rather than patient centred. With this comes a risk that standards of care may be reduced to financial KPIs, and rural service providers may suffer where they do not have the scale of economy to be compared to their urban counterparts.

That said, this is not inevitable and clinicians, be that medical, nursing or allied health, have the opportunity to take the lead and chart a different course. In this presentation Dr. Michelle Gunn will discuss the importance of clinical decision making in resource allocation and wise use of scarce resources.  Touching on her research, and broader healthcare experience, she will show that clinicians are at a crossroads, where they can no longer avoid financial considerations, and that they must strengthen their voice in the resource debate.

She will argue that the clinical professions must embrace comprehensive and transparent business planning as a way of reviewing, redesigning and funding their models of care.  She will close by sharing an approach to developing a nursing business plan which she describes as being brilliantly simple, empowering and a game changer in nurses taking the lead in the provision of quality cost effective care.

Learning Objectives:

That participants will have a broad understanding of: