Community South Medical Center - Essay Example

Community South Medical Center Insert Insert Insert 29 August Community South Medical Center has several needs it requires to address. One of the needs is updating its information technology. Improvement in information technology used in health care provision could support pay-for-performance mechanism that would improve the quality of service provided (Anderson, Rice, & Kominski, 2007). Community South Medical Center has several strengths that could be essential in addressing this need. Its major strength is the pool of qualified professions that the center enjoys. These professionals could easily be able to incorporate any technology introduced in their work. However, the center also has some weaknesses for this need. Its major weakness is the limitations of its internal sources of finance. Being a profit based health center, community South Medical Center finds it difficult to raise large sums of money that might be required for updating the technology. The need also has some opportunities as well as threats. A major opportunity for this need is the support available from the funding institutions. Many funding institutions would be willing to fund this organization as long as it shows the willingness and ability to pay back the funds. The threat available for this need is ethical issues. Information technology systems for providing advice on treatment and provision of other medical services need to take into account scientific evidence, patient history, and local constraints (Currie & Finnegan, 2009). Most of the information technologies used in provision of medical services cannot achieve this unless they are appropriately employed. This is one of the ethical issues associated with use of technology in providing medical services. Majority of people believe medical services offered using technology are not as effective as service offered by using humans. This threat might hinder the organization in its attempt to advance its use of technology in providing medical services. Currently, the issues confronting the Community South Medical Center are shortage of clinical staff, non-interfacing information technology, antiquated facilities and infrastructure, decline in T.J.C. compliance, and a shift in financial mix. These issues correlate either directly or indirectly with the need we have identified. The shortage of staffs is what makes the organization to improve its technology so that it can improve the efficiency of the existing staffs. Non-interfacing information technology and antiquated facilities and infrastructure are what make addressing of this need to be more difficult. Decline in T.J.C compliance is because of failure of the organization to change according to the changes experience in the medical sector. Advancement in technology is one of the most recent changes in this sector in which the organization has not been able to comply fully. Shift in financial mix is what makes the organization to have a challenge of financing programs to address the identified need. Strategic mission and plan have not been revised in the past three years. This might be the reason why the organization has not been able to advance its information technology in the past three years. Therefore, this is the most appropriate time for revising the strategic mission and plan. If this is done, then the process of addressing issues confronting Community South Medical Center will be much easier. The CEO should address these issues now since the magnitude is likely to increase if the issues are left for another year before they are solved Moreover, next year the organization might be having more complicated issues that would be more urgent. As a result, these issues might end up being unsolved. One of the ways of solving these issues is by addressing the need that we have identified. This would solve almost all the issues that this organization is confronting. To confront these issues, a new strategic plan would be required. The strategic plan used by this organization should be introducing new technology, training its staffs on how to use the new technology, and then integrating the technology with medical service delivery. This strategic plan could be very effective although it would require a lot of resources and time. The leadership positions in the strategic management team for this strategic plan would be program manager, procurement manager, and departmental program coordinators. This is because these are the key positions required for effective implementation of the strategic plan. The responsibilities of the key member of the strategic management team would vary depending on the leadership position. The program manager would oversee the overall implementation of the strategic plan. Program procurement manager would be ensuring that are the materials required for implementation of this plan are availed in time. These two personnel would be reporting directly to the CEO. However, they would need to work as a team. Departmental program coordinators would be overseeing the implementation of this strategic plan in their respective departments. This would be reporting to the program manager although the CEO would appoint them. Several market trends could be identified in the area of medical service provision. According to Hyman (2007), the market for health care is dominated by insurance. This has made majority of people to be able to afford quality health care services. As a result, the demand for this kind of services has greatly increased. Moreover, the market for medical services is a controlled market. As a result, some of the individuals willing and able to enter into this market as producers are not allowed. This makes demand for medical services to be always bigger than the supply therefore leading to a continuous escalation of the prices on medical service in the past few years. The effect has been the increase in the number of people who might be unable to afford medical services. The market trend identified above could have various effects on the Community South Medical Center. According to Feldstein (2011), the main component of medical care expenditure increase has been the population increase, higher prices, and increase in quantity of health care consumed. These are greatly influenced by the market trends suggested above. Increase in affordability of health services due to introduction of insurance services has increased the quantity of health care consumed. As a result, this organization might have an increase in their customer base leading to an increase in its revenues. The control imposed on the market for medical services has made this organization not to provide certain services despite the high demand. This is because of the unavailability of required facilities. Community South Medical center could prepare for this using its strategic plan. The implementation of this strategic plan would result to improvement of the technology used in service provision in this organization. Moreover, it would result to introduction of other technologies that currently do not exist in the organization. As a result, the organization would be able to lower its cost of providing the services and thus it would be able to give services at lower prices. In addition, because of advancement in technology the restrictions imposed on this organization would be greatly reduced. This would increase the market covered by this organization and thus counter the challenge of the market trend that this organization might face. References Andersen, R. M., Rice, T. H., & Kominski, G. F. (2007). Changing the U.S. Health Care System: Key Issues in Health Services Policy and Management. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons Publishers. Currie, W., & Finnegan, D. (2009). Integrating Healthcare with Information and Communication Technology. Abingdon: Radcliffe Publishing Ltd. Hyman, D. N. (2007). Public Finance: A Contemporary Application of Theory to Policy. Mason, OH: Thompson Higher Education. Feldstein, P. J. (2011). Health Care Economics. Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning. Read More