Healthcare Insight Repositioning - Research Paper Example

Case Study of a Hospital Organization: Healthcare Insight Repositioning Abstract This study is aimed at looking at the major changes in a medical facility that will ensure the organization provides optimum medical care to its patients. It analyzes the changes that have taken place in the organization, looking at the major effects it has had on the daily operation of the institution. In addition, the paper describes the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) that the organization faces in its struggle towards provision of quality medical care to its patients. The paper goes ahead to analyze the changes that have occurred in the organization and their deliverables, with a provisional section on the recommendations to be incorporated in the organization’s new plan so as to achieve its vision. Healthcare Insight Repositioning Human beings often get sick and when they do so, they need medical attention. Landmark Health is a non-profit making organization that looks towards offering their patients suitable services that will leave them satisfied, and ensure that their outpatients have words full of praise for their services rather than criticizing them (Nanus & Dobbs, 1999). Landmark Healthcare Organization extends its medical services from Virginia all the way to Georgia. The mission of the organization is to improve the health of communities, with services to each and every person in the community. The major purpose of this study is to identify the major successes and pitfalls faced by the organization as a result of its changing environment in terms of site, management and patient outcome and suggesting solutions and suitable recommendations to the problems that the organization faces. The essence of a local health centre is to provide suitable medical care to its adjacent community and extend its services further to other communities in the region. Landmark Healthcare provides value within the community by embodying the belief that they have practiced at the various sites in the country. According to their senior leader, they strive to provide same medical facilities all over their thirteen locations so as to satisfy patients from both areas who visit their institution. In addition, their market leader pointed out that they offer value by providing exceptional medical facilities, enhancing appropriate physician practices and being devoted to outreach of the community and other communal services (Nanus & Dobbs, 1999). These values, when provided adequately and sufficiently to the community, come with benefits, and as he continued to say, it has had some enormous contributions to the success of the organization, including the organizations registering a massive benefit of $ 567 million in the year 2011. The benefits recorded were not only because of the large numbers of in-patients that they record, but it was accrued to the community services that they offer to the people. These services include: i. Benefits from charity work. The organization is involved in numerous charity programs that they do not ask for repayment of the amount they used, but rather they offer the community the chance to use the facilities at no cost, and they reap the benefits from being outsourced by other organizations (Hill & Jones, 2008). ii. Community health education. The institution plays an important role in educating the community about their personal hygiene and other forms of formal education about health. This has contributed a lot in the fight of keeping people safe from infective diseases, especially water borne and some air borne diseases (Beach, 2006). iii. Installation of support groups. iv. Participation in medical research v. Creation of numerous programs that serve patients, and the rest of the community and other vulnerable citizens. vi. Academic health programs and other community initiatives. According to the market leader, they are facing more challenges than ever as a result of the changes that are being undertaken by the organization (Nanus & Dobbs, 1999). Generally, every country worldwide has a healthcare industry, and the industry has stipulated clear standards in which a recognized medical institution should operate (Hill & Jones, 2008). Landmark Healthcare is an institution that operates within these standards. The best part of this organization is the ability to attend to patients’ needs regardless of the means of payment. Landmark Healthcare is unique. This is because the organization comprises visionary thinkers that are able to build and expand on the organization’s plan and/or vision by applying combined efforts from other medical institutions to assist them in keeping track of the ever growing medical sector so as to provide their patients with excellent services (Beach, 2006). SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) About two years ago, the organization was operating on a rather small piece of land that caused dissatisfaction among patients and the hospital staff. The organization boosted the spirits of the staff and their esteemed customers by buying a larger piece of land and expanding their locations to thirteen as is stands. This marked the start of a radical change that was to follow thereafter. Due to their improved services, the number of patients grew and there was a need to grow the organization too, thus the acquisition of a larger piece of land for more construction of branches of the hospital. SWOT analysis involves the evaluation of an organization’s internal strengths, their weaknesses, the opportunities that will ensure their success if well used, and the threats that face the organization in the course of its expansion (Hill & Jones, 2008). Weaknesses and strengths of an organization are mainly internal while opportunities and threats are usually external depending on the nature of the threat or opportunity. SWOT analysis has always been thought to be for businesses and major production industries, but in this study, it is as important as it is to those industries, for it helps identify positive work forces not forgetting the potential problems that the healthcare faces as result of its change. Landmark Healthcare as an institution that exists among other similar institutions has to have these characteristics. Strengths The success of an organization lies in the strength of the organization itself. These strengths exist in the organization internally and for them to be identified and exploited in the correct way, there need to be an expert to facilitate and encourage the participants (SWOT analysis examples, 2009). Landmark Healthcare saw a number of opportunities that helped it achieve its goal of providing quality services to their patients, and they exploited these strengths to the maximum to ensure the desire is fulfilled. These strengths include: i. Experienced, dedicated, and resourceful staff. According to their senior leader, the workforce of Landmark Healthcare comprises very experienced doctors and nurses. This factor ensures that their patients receive one of the best treatment and other services in the country. In addition, the physicians in the laboratories are very resourceful in their areas of study and they cooperate with the other doctors to ensure the outcome of a patient’s treatment is of the best quality. With these in mind, the organization did not hesitate to invest in other parts of the country since they only needed to add in a few other employees of the same status to ensure fluent running of the organization. ii. Communal participation and collaboration. Every organization has an internal and an external environment. The internal environment consists of the staff while the community forms an integral part of the external environment. Landmark Healthcare has the advantage of having a good relationship with its immediate community. This really helps them in their communal services since the participation of the community is guaranteed. In addition, organization of educational programs for the community is easy, and this was a major boost to the expansion of the organization. iii. Teamwork. Landmark Healthcare has the advantage of applying teamwork in most of its procedures. In many organizations, it is a boost if the organizational practices are carried out by a team rather than an individual. The organization put together teams to work on different projects and the deliverables were promising, thus the continued quality improvement in the organization. iv. Practical management. Landmark Healthcare involves the management in carrying out most of its duties. In some cases, you may find certain duties being allocated to the junior members of the organization, and without the participation of the senior managers, they feel degraded. With Landmark, all tasks involve a senior manager and this really boosts the morale of the other employees thus the increased efforts in their respective fields (SWOT analysis examples, 2007). Weaknesses i. Limited parking area. The organization noted that patients were socking in and there was limited parking area for them, thus the need to buy more land to create this space. ii. Limited resources. Due to the quality services being offered by the organization, the number of customers increased drastically, which meant that the resources available are being overused. Due to this, the organization should increase resources in each department to ensure continued quality healthcare to its patients. iii. Unsuitable communication channels. Across departments in an organization, there need to be efficient communication to ensure a fluent flow of operation. At Landmark Healthcare, there is no established channel of communication and this is the major weakness since it affects the flow of information between departments, thus decreasing the efficiency of the organization in terms of service to patients. Opportunities i. Leadership training. Well utilized opportunities can result in eliminating potential threats in an organization. One of these opportunities is giving the staff the opportunity to learn more and providing training opportunities for effective leadership to be achieved in the organization. More qualified personnel will ensure the continued success of the organization (SWOT Analysis, 2007). Landmark Healthcare provides this for their staff. ii. Collaboration with other organizations and communities. Landmark Healthcare exploited this opportunity to the maximum by setting up community centers and educational programs to educate the community about health concerns. This has enabled the organization to boost a good relationship with the community, which is essential for any thriving organization (Hill & Jones, 2008). In addition, collaborating with other organizations in research activities helps the organization in finding suitable solutions to different medical problems from different perspectives. iii. Promote teamwork. Teamwork is essential to the success of an organization. Landmark has ensured that different departments work hand in hand towards achieving the organizational goal, and this has played an integral part in ensuring the success of the organization (SWOT Analysis, 2007). iv. Social media. The organization sees the media as an opportunity in that it will help them in identifying new products and services and help promote innovative ideas that would result in higher quality care and achieve the vision of the organization. Threats i. Budget. With the thirteen locations available to the organization, it is definite that the organization’s expenditure will increase. The organization has to find means in which to ensure their budget is well balanced so that it does not accrue losses (SWOT analysis, 2007). ii. Competition from other medical institutions. Landmark Healthcare is not the only medical centre in the country; there are others, too. For it to remain in contention, it must fade off competition from other competing institutions in terms of services offered. In addition, they should also reward their employees abundantly to keep away interest from other institutions (Hirsch & Grandolf, n.d.). iii. “Stealing” of employees. Competing institutions have always understudied their successful competitor. The result of this is usually accompanied by movement of employees from one institution to another. Employees at Landmark Healthcare are practically among the best in the region and the organization is keeping tabs on them to ensure that other organizations do not come in and “steal” them (Northouse, 2010). iv. The change. The changes that the organization has undergone in the past year are very effective to the operation of the organization. The organization has not undergone the change fully, and the future changes it wishes to partake are a potential threat to the status of the organization. When asked what it takes for the organization to succeed, the senior leader argued that the organization banked on effective planning, employee involvement, with one eye on the future (Northouse, 2010). He goes ahead to say that provision of high quality and compassionate care to patients is the primary strength of the organization, with weaknesses associated with the same in that some patients might expect better treatment than the one being offered by the organization. Vision Audit To ensure that the vision of the organization is effective, the development of a mutual understanding of the possible developments in the external environment is essential. Thinking of the future outcome should be systematic but not predictive (Nanus, 1992). The organization has a vision and in order to monitor the momentum of the vision, a vision audit must be conducted. According to Nanus (1992), for a successful vision audit, the organization should ensure a number of elements are accounted for. They include: i. The organization should have a set vision. According to the senior leader, they are yet to achieve the goal of their vision and they are working hard to achieve that through educating their staff and promoting teamwork, with a close monitoring of the technological developments around them (Change management, 2008). ii. According to the market leader, with the set vision, the organization will be among the top medical institutions not only in the US but also in the world, and this is to be achieved in the next five to ten years. iii. The organization management has made sure that the staff, the community and all the stakeholders are aware of the organization’s vision so that they can work together towards achieving it. iv. According to the senior leader, the vision was initiated by the management. This is an indicator that the management is behind the vision which is a basic requirement for the success of the organization (Change management, 2008). In general, the organization should work to ensure that the vision set by it is delivered as per its standards, and avoid the limitations that come along with its successful implementation. Analysis of the Organizational Change Landmark Healthcare is a medical institution facing multiple changes in its management and quality of services offered. To accommodate these changes, it is necessary that the organization also changes its managerial criteria, introduction of new teams and systems accompanied by changes of agents and implementation teams (Hirsch & Grandolf, n.d.). Change is an issue characterized by doubts of the future since no one knows the outcomes but they only anticipate for them. Despite this, a change in the management structure will ensure a better future for the stakeholders (Hill & Jones, 2008). Another point noted is about the payment of the senior managers, which is believed to be very costly. Landmark Healthcare should cut on these costs in order to achieve their goal, and it is achieved through employee negotiations on salaries and certain posts which are to be discarded pending introduction of new ones. With the continued changes, Landmark has come to note that some positions are irrelevant, hence their removal, with the provision of a visionary, open-minded leadership that is tolerant to opinions during the decision making process. This is an organizational culture that will ensure the creation of a confident staff and a healthy organization that will keep quality relationship with its employees (Silow-Carroll, 2009). Landmark Healthcare has a statement in its vision that entitles customers to quality services to guarantee their satisfaction, which is the heart of the restructuring plan. In any organization, suitable flow of information is a very essential contributor to the success of the organization (Northouse, 2010). The firm has to keep records of patients and the organization’s data safe; thus, the organization put in place strategies focused on using social networking sites to interact with patients regarding their problems. Another factor comes with the legality of the entity, with reforms necessary to ensure ethical and legal relationships with stakeholders. Modern accounting is essential in bargaining the finances offered by various financing institutions (Silow-Carroll, 2009). These are some of the issues that are to be addressed in the new action plan for Landmark Healthcare. Recommendations Landmark Healthcare has undergone some positive changes but it is still working hard to achieve its goal. To achieve this, the research team proposed several recommendations for the organization: i. The senior staff should conduct routine visiting of new patients upon admission and before discharge to inquire about their experiences. ii. Communication boards should be installed in every room to display the details of the staff on duty and the plan of care. iii. Recognize the performance of employees by rewarding them. This will boost the morale of the reward receiver and the subsequent employees. In conclusion, Landmark Healthcare has undergone very positive changes – changes that have made it one of the best medical institutions in the country. For this to be achieved, the vision of the organization has to be precise and well known to all associates of the organization, involve all entities in the planning process and establish suitable strategies to ensure the achievement of the goal. In addition, the organization should make a substantial follow-up to the changes being made to ensure that they do not go astray from the intended vision. References Beach, L. R. (2006). Leadership and the art of change: A practical guide to organizational transformation. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications. Change management strategy: Vision audit. (2008). Retrieved from http://www.interprofessionalresourcecentre.ca/s1/documents/1.2-vision-cms-audit.pdf. Hill, C. W. L., & Jones, G. R. (2008). Strategic management: An integrated approach. Mason, OH: South-Western/Cengage Learning. Hirsch, L., & Grandolf, S. (n.d.). How to bring maximum benefit to your twice-yearly  marketing update. Retrieved from http://www.healthcaresuccess.com/articles/swot.html. Nanus, B., & Dobbs, S. M. (1999). Leaders who make a difference: Essential strategies for meeting the nonprofit challenge. San Francisco, Calif: Jossey-Bass. Northouse, P. G. (2010). Leadership: Theory and practice. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Silow-Carroll, S. (2009). Duke University Hospital: Organizational and tactical strategies to enhance patient satisfaction. SWOT analysis examples. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.cps.ca.gov/workforceplanning/documents/SampleCompletedSWOTAnalysi pdf. SWOT analysis in the community health center setting. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.stonybrookmedicalcenter.org/colorectalcancer. Read More