Hospital's Organizational Structure and Its Advantages and Limitations - Case Study Example

Analysis of Concord Hospital’s Organizational Structure and Its Advantages and Limitations Student’s Name Institution Concord Hospital’s Organizational Structure and Its Advantages and Limitations Introduction Organizational structure is one of the most important aspects that determine how companies are run and their ultimate success. Organizational structure is even more important and strategic when it comes to health organizations. In addition to representing the mission, vision, and strategic goals of health organizations, organizational structure also enables the management to evaluate the correlation between employees and patients to enhance job efficiency and the overall performance and productivity of the hospital (Goel, 2009). Hospitals with an effective organizational structure are in a better position to promote work efficiency among their employees who are expected to provide better healthcare services to patients. Organizational structure has a positive correlation with the firm’s mission, vision, and strategic goals; for that reason, the design of a company’s organizational structure directly affects its mission, vision, and goals (Winter & Haux, 2011). The paper provides a critical analysis of organizational structure, its importance and disadvantages, and its effects on the mission, strategy and goals of Concord Hospital, which is located in Sydney, Australia. In order to exhaustively outline Concord Hospital’s organizational structure and its effects on the mission, vision, and strategic objectives of the hospital, the paper is divided into three main parts: the background information of Concord Hospital and its organizational structure, a critical analysis of how Concord’s organizational structure affects its mission, vision, and objectives of the hospital, and the conclusion. Concord Hospital and its Organizational Structure Concord Hospital, which is located in Sydney, Australia, is one of the best hospitals in the state and it provides a range of specializes services for both in- and out-patients within the region (The University of Sydney, 2013). The hospital has and continues to build up various systems that it uses to provide comprehensive services to its patients. For instance, the hospital has a Burns Unit, which is highly recognized by the Australian Council on Healthcare Standards; the hospital uses the unit to provide treatment to patients who come not only from Sydney, but from other states as well. The hospital is also has an educational facility through which it trains and offers placement opportunities to various students studying medicine (SLHD/SWSLHD, 2012). Concord Hospital has a very comprehensive organizational structure that enables it to delegate and share duties among different individuals in the management panel. At the top of the structure is the hospital’s general manager, a position that is divided into various positions, including the director of corporate and clinical support services, the director of medicine, the director of performance and informatics, the director of nursing, and the demand management unit. At the bottom of the structure is the Academic and Research Unit, which is the department responsible for carrying out research at the hospital (SLHD/SWSLHD, 2012). The mission and vision of Concord Hospital are collectively expressed in the hospital’s objectives, which include: practicing clinical excellence, contributing to health research, leading in terms of medical training, changing with the needs of the community, and responding to the special needs of its patients. The mission and vision of the hospital are supposed to be met through the provision of quality services, caring for the needs of individual patients, respecting healthcare terms, and promotion of healthy lifestyles. From the mission and vision of the hospital and their fulfillment strategies, it can be deduced that Concord’s main objective is founded on providing better and more specialized health care services to its clients (The University of Sydney, 2013). The Critical Analysis Concord’s Organizational Structure and its Mission and Vision Concord Hospital’s organizational structure can be considered as a functional or line structure due to the fact that it recognizes all the disciplines under it as equal. The hospital’s structure is designed in such a way that it accords significant importance to the accomplishment of the hospital’s mission. The structure works toward ensuring that the employees are given all they need to enhance their performance and productivity (Ledlow & Coppola, 2011). The hospital’s management believes that it can only achieve its mission by empowering all the employees. As a result, workers are taken through a comprehensive training to ensure that they provide the best health care services to the hospital’s clients (The University of Sydney, 2013). Apart from the hospital’s mission, its organizational structure is also designed in such a way that it promotes the objective and culture of the hospital. For instance, the comprehensive units, such as the Burn Unit and the Anzac Research Institution, indicate the culture and objective of the hospital is to provide the best research and healthcare services to its clients. Lastly, the organizational structure shows a devolved system of leadership in which responsibilities and authority are widely spread over different departments to ensure that the hospital provides the best services to its employees, and more importantly, its patients (Sower, Duffy, & Kohers, 2008). Advantages and Limitations of the Organizational Structure The kind of organizational structure applied in Concord Hospital has advantages as well as limitations in relation to how the institution delivers health care to its patients. It is clear that the hospital’s leadership and management are based on a functional structure. This system implies that power moves from a more advanced position of leadership to a less advanced one (Porter, 2011). Such a system of organizational structure is significantly advantageous when it comes to economic expenditure. The system enables the management of the hospital to economize expenditure by enhancing the efficiency with which resources are used; it also helps in minimizing recurrence of capital and human resources. Consequently, the functional structure is seen as one of the main instruments that the hospital relies on to improve the way it delivers health care and other services to its patients and clients (Lotich, 2013). Although the organizational structure of Concord Hospital is effective, it has a few shortcomings. Firstly, the functional structure is seen to isolate some staff members from the management, which denies them the chance to participate in the management of the hospital. The staff members also are isolated are barred from receiving important information, which they may need in their day-to-day operations. This may adversely affect the employees’ performance and cause them to provide poor health care services to patients and other clients of the hospital (Colling & York, 2009). The Organizational Structure and the Hospital’s Mission and Goals Concord Hospital uses the utility of its organizational structure to achieve its mission and goals. The structure enables the hospital to divide its workforce into easy-to-manage sections that are important in maintaining strong relations among its employees. The hospital depends on the organizational structure to ensure that the management personnel maintain only functional departments that work toward achieving its goals (Myers, 2012). For instance, departments such as the Research and Education Unit are linked to the hospital’s mission aimed at offering the best quality teaching services to the students and conducting research studies to improve health care services. These departments, whose functions are enhanced by the organizational structure, help the hospital to achieve its mission of being the leader in teaching and research as well as in the provision of health care services in the state of Sydney (Lotich, 2013). Main Lines of Authority and Responsibility for Achieving Concord’s Goals Concord Hospital believes in the delegation of duties, which are designed by the top management, but executed by the employees. The main lines of authority and duties at the hospital indicate that work at the hospital is divided into subordinates to make its completion easier. The authority at the hospital designs jobs at a managerial level and then passes the tasks to employees who are then supposed to implement them (Pratt, 2010). This implies that individuals at the managerial level retain predominant rights over the other employees who are placed on a lower level along the authority line. The employees are expected to utilize the hospital’s resources more efficiently and effectively as established by the hospital’s main lines of duties and authority (Rowitz, 2013). Effects of the Structure on the Hospital’s Performance and Potential Solutions The type of the organizational structure Concord uses, the functional structure, is seen to be effective as it enhances the coordination of duties among the different departments within the hospital. The way in which the key lines of duty are used to distribute roles between specialties within the organization also helps to improve the health care services provided to the patients who visit the hospital. The organizational structure used at Concord puts professionals with similar specialty in the same category, making it easy to train and develop professionalism within the hospital. This helps the hospital to improve health care delivery to its patients (Ginter, Duncan, & Swayne, 2013). Although the functional structure helps a lot in the delegation of duties within the hospital, it impairs the delivery of health care to a certain extent. The structure leads to the grouping of professionals into different specialties, which lead to poor coordination among different departments within the hospital (Pelote, Route, & Malone, 2007). This problem can be corrected by adopting a mixed organizational structure to replace the functional structure currently used at the hospital. A mixed structure consisting of the product and functional structures is effective in improving medical professionalism and patient care (Provan & Kenis, 2008). Conclusion The paper provides a critical analysis of Concord Hospital’s organizational structure and how it influences the way the institution achieves its mission and strategic goals. The hospital’s mission and vision are collectively about practicing clinical excellence and are supposed to be achieved through the provision of high-quality services, caring for the needs of each individual patient, and through promotion of healthy living among patients. The hospital uses its functional organizational structure, together with positive employee action, to achieve the hospital’s mission, vision and strategic goals. Although the structure is effective in enhancing quality health care delivery, it isolates the staff from the management of the hospital, a factor that could demoralize its staff members. This problem can be rectified through the adoption of a mixed structure, which comprises the functional and product structures. References Colling, R. L., & York, T. (2009). Hospital and healthcare security. Burlington, VT: Elsevier. Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2013). Strategic management of health care organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. 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