Advanced Leadership and Management - Term Paper Example

«Advanced Leadership and Management» In Saudi Arabia, healthcare is under the control of Ministry of Health. Ministry of Health is not the only the provider of health care, there are lots of other agencies who also provide the healthcare. Saudi Arabia provides free complete health care to all its citizens. Around ninety-eight percent of estimated population take health services through the Ministry of Health and other governmental sectors such as Ministry of Defence, Education, Interior, and National Guard. These organisations provide health care of their relevant staff members and their families through a structured network of hospitals and health centres. Background King Khalid University hospital is the largest teaching hospital of the college of Medicine, in Riyadh. It is one of the biggest secondary care centres in the area that occupies eight hundred beds. There are various departments in King Khalid University Hospital. There are Eye specialist department, vascular laboratory, Paediatric emergency department and Neonatology department, Nursing department, Department of Anaesthesia. Al-Wabil explains about the vascular laboratory in King Khalid University Hospital. The arrangement of this manual has been intended in such a manner that necessary information along with clinical applications are totally described and the notion of understanding and the vocal communication reflecting lucidity of thoughts becomes simple. Other important aspects are the information that helps fast understanding of the request of different technologies that are used in the vascular laboratory (Al-Wabil, 2009). However the problems exist in the area of communication and quality care services. The paediatric emergency service open for twenty four hours per day and has a high-volume turnover with annual attendance of thirty thousand. They provide separate waiting rooms for males and females, nursing station, five examination cubicles, three observation beds and a resuscitation room. The major suffering cases are handled in the main emergency room. The patient attending are of different nationalities from Saudis to Non-Saudis. In every shift, one senior and junior paediatric is available. The patients are categorized into three groups according to the severity of problems. Patients who need immediate attention are under the first category, ill patients who do not have life intimidating problems are covered in second category and in the last category mild cases are included. In the mild category, the patients who need primary care are included. This study also indicated the problems of communication gap and lack of quality in the services received by the patients. Discussion on Problem The satisfaction of four hundred in patients with physician services in King Khalid University Hospital has been studied in the study conducted by Al-Doghaither (2004). The attributes of the patients and the ward of admission were composed and the questionnaire which is based on standardized Likert scale was utilized. The highest denote satisfaction score was for admission but the lowest was for communication. Between services items, highest indicator of satisfaction score was for physicians concerned about the conditions and opinions of the patients when planning care and lowest score for physicians concerning for opinions about the care quality and problems. The Females and the patients who are less educated were more satisfied and happy with the services and care of King Khalid University Hospital but the educated patients felt some problems with the services. They felt that the physicians’ services were not good and satisfactory. Male surgical and medical ward patients were totally dissatisfied with these services. It is very important for the management of the King Khalid University Hospital to fulfil the expectations of their clients as well as to judge the client’s satisfaction (Al-Doghaither, 2004). Communication gaps Communication is one of the most important aspects for the proper delivery of services. In a hospital setting there are five types of communications that takes place: Communication between two healthcare experts Communication between healthcare professionals and other staff Communication of healthcare professionals and hospital employees with the patient Communication of healthcare professionals and hospital employees with the family of the patient Communication of management with other stakeholders Lack of communication in any of the first four types of communication may lead to dissatisfaction among the patients and others. Information or instructions given by one health care professional can be crucial for the treatment for the patient and ignorance of which might lead to failure of service provided. Similarly with the other staff of the hospital then a communication gap among them may lead to service gap and services or quality of services of the organisation can suffer with that. Change Management “Institutional change management is a natural, dynamic process with a logic all its own” (Halal, 2005). Change management is a time taking process (Rigolosi, 2005; Duckett, 2009). The ingredients for successful change management are the direct and energetic involvement in difficult strategic issues in all cases, by using the knowledge in both the strategy team and the organization. This can be achieved only when the effective improvement in communication between senior and middle levels of management. “Changes are not permanent; rather they must be considered as a dynamic and ongoing journey. They are continuous even though at any given point in time, a manager and follower consider that success was reached. (Rigolosi, 2005, p. 303)” Change Model There are various models to introduce the change in any organization or institution. But this study focuses on three models which are very important for the change management. These models are Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Analysis, Lewin’s Freezing and Unfreezing models, and the Seven-S Framework model. The Seven-S Framework Model is used to scrutinize an organization and to recommends strategies for change. In this model the strategy is to be implemented. This model is generally used by consultancy companies. This model includes hard and soft factors. Hard factors are structure, strategy and systems but soft factors include style, staff, skills and shared values (McMillan, 2008). Kurt Lewin’s models have subjugated change management teaching for number of years and another model of Force Field Analysis is a very useful and well-used device. Lewin supposed that an organization was held in balance between the forces which encourages the status quo and those that were pouring for change. Managers can describe their own force field analysis and use these analyses to resolve the factors that are pushing for or against any projected changes. Then they can capable to focus on their weaknesses and improve the strength of their support. They may convince finance department that a new change will make more savings and convince head of HR that new changes in working practice will give benefits to the staff. This model is simplification of any given situation. Managers can advised to think about those factors that will help change developments. Lewin’s freezing and Unfreezing model is the best model for the change management in today’s life. This model depends on a physical science analogy. The procedure of change has three major stages. First, the organization requires being unfrozen from its steady position so that the changes can be easily made. This is the first step and it may engross training to prepare people for the new roles. Once the first step is completed then the unfreezing step symbolizes the implementation stage of the change procedure. At the time of this stage all problems either internal or external are addressed. After completing two stages, the third stage comes into play. In the third stage, change is rooted in the organization and a new normality arises and this stage is a freezing stage. The major problem of this model is that the organization is inert and can be stimulated neatly from one state to another state with the right planning and managerial ability. The freezing and unfreezing analogy is very powerful. It detains the hard quintessence of the physical, non-living world but not the intricacy and instability of living human beings interacting with each other. This model help managers and their staff that change has to be bedded down and everything returned to steadiness as soon as possible. Source: Kurt Lewin’s Change Model (as cited in McMillan 2008) In this study this model has been used. It is identified that there is a need of comprehensive plan and formats for communication. The formats should provide the indication on the sensitivity of the issue. In order to bring change in the communication pattern of the hospital, first there needs to have a comprehensive plan for the desired state of communication, deliverables and expected role of key stakeholders. Once this is determined, management can adopt various strategies for the unfreezing phase so that staff and the patients of the King Khalid University Hospital are prepared for the change process. This can start with small regular meetings to discuss their problems, issues and find the ways to minimise communication gap between management, healthcare professionals, staff and all the patients. After listen the problems, management should try to solve these problems and give satisfaction to their patients. Management of the King Khalid University Hospital should fix the strict rules and regulations for the doctors and staff to give proper care and attention to their patients so that they feel good. For giving the better care and best treatment to the patients, it is necessary that the nurses and other staff of King Khalid University Hospital followed all instructions properly which are mentioned and set by the Management or senior professionals of King Khalid Hospital. This will help to achieve the good reputation in the whole country. The King Khalid University Hospital needed a new class of services and better communication strategies. This hospital has thousands of satisfied clients and extremely successful annual meetings. The staff is usually trained and satisfied with the work culture. It also has received positive media attention and has successful positive publicity. This was an extraordinary achievement because the founder of this hospital had done more effective sanatorium. It is very important to focus on every area of the hospital. The organizer is the emblematic shape, representing the strengths and weaknesses of the system, past and future of the organization. Leadership was the central issue in this case and anything can constrain change (Rigolosi, 2005). "Dedicated and intelligent leadership resides in many state health authorities that labour to improve the access, quality and sustainability of public health care." (Duckett, 2009, p. 355) The change management strategy will be implemented in a step wise process in the organisation. This is based on the idea that new methods are used in the organization for the better environment (Duckett, 2009). Efficiency means better supervision and better management and effectiveness means to improve the quality of the services that organization supplies which depends on the level of communication (Duckett, 2009). The change management in the King Khalid Hospital communication plan with bring changes to its organisation culture. This starts with managerial, organizational and institutional procedure of change and results in a flexible organization for an open decision-making processes. If staffs of the organization are well informed about strategy then they will take up their responsibilities and perform in a best way, take initiative and participate with creative ideas and solutions for the organization (Duckett, 2009). Traditional owners of the organization do not allowed their employees to participate in the strategic decision-making. The members of the strategy management involved with other employees in the organization by seeking information and asking for best ideas and solutions for the development of the organization. Strategic management breaks the rules of the traditional management concepts. “When evolutionary changes occur, nevertheless, there continues to be changes in the extrinsic and intrinsic forces in an environment that require monitoring on a continuous basis. At a strategic point in time, these new changes require that leaders incorporate new influences that change what has previously made a company successful. This is called revolutionary change. (Rigolosi, 2005, p. 302)” Necessary advices are given to the patients to reduce the unnecessary visits to the paediatric emergency rooms which includes, improve the standard of services at the primary health care clinics, educate people and give complete information through mass media about the facilities and services provided in the primary health care centres, encourage people to make maximum use of such centres and highlight that the emergency rooms is only for emergency cases, give emergency services to those patients who are actually sick, nonemergency patients should be given appointments to primary care clinic for next day (Al-Ayed, et al, 1997). In a study conducted by Al-Doghaither (2004) revealed that there are number of areas where the patients were facing problems particularly with the male surgical and medical ward patients units. These were very dissatisfied with the services they were receiving from the physicians. Apart from that there were problems related to care quality and difference of the perceived level of services among the educated and less educated patients. Therefore it is clear that the perception and reception of service depends on the background of the patients as well. In such scenario, development of an appropriate communication strategy that can involve and cover the needs of all the stakeholders would be comprehensive and needed. “The tendency of the Arab-Muslim family to instinctively take on the wishes of the patient is complimentary to the principle of Muslim medical ethics as well as the approach of the Muslim law, both judging the serious illness as the cause of the state of psychophysical inferiority of the patient” (Atighetchi, 2007). Emulating the laws of the more developed Western countries oriented towards assurances an increasingly better balance in the relationship between patient and doctor and subsequent the line of some principles of Muslim medical ethics, the first ethic highlights the independence of the patient and he has a full right to know the truth (Atighetchi, 2007). This is difficult for the employees to adopt a new system immediately. The resistance to change can be dealt with appropriate communication and involvement of employees in the decision making process. The staffs working on the particular technology needs to be trained and all the instructions needs to be communicated clearly. The other staff should be given training on how to deal with clients with different backgrounds. This is very important to understand how to serve the clients better. It is just a struggle to keep the things up to date, appropriate and normal. This organization done the procedure for strategic planning which involve their top officials and this strategy focused on to get more centralized funding. They tried to change management and rethink about the goals, structure and the level of services provided to the patients at each and every department, cases attended by the medical experts and other professionals and other features of the organization. Strategic Evaluation Strategic evaluation can be done on the basis of the set benchmarks on the improvements and regular meeting in which personnel from various departments can identify if they have any problem and discuss with concerned people regarding the same. This also allows understanding different practical issues of the change management plan implementation. The knowledge is shared that can contribute to decisions. All this will benefit organization in various levels. This would help serving the client needs on time and effectively. Decisions can be taken quickly, it reducing the indecision and ultimately raising the motivation that is required for taking new challenges. These capabilities are crucial important for innovative organization (Roobeek, 1996, as cited by Toulmin, et al). Conclusion It can be concluded that the Saudi government give full financial support to the health services for the better health of the population. The health services of King Khalid Hospital are very good. They give proper attention to their patients. They give proper care and better treatment to their patients. They are very particular about their services. The employees of this hospital are very cooperative and well trained and give best treatment to their patients. They put clear picture about their disease in front of the patients. They use new technology and new machines for the treatment and give satisfactory services to their patients. The Saudi government and Ministry of Health give full support to them. They take equal importance to every part of the hospital and the best decisions are taken place for the benefits of the patients. They are focused on the weaknesses of the hospitals so that they can rectify these problems and maintained good environment in the hospitals. The management try to improve every department of the hospital so that they provide better services to their patients. People have a faith on this hospital and they believe that they give proper care and best treatment to them. From the last decade, even when the studies like Al-Doghaither (2004) had been conducted, the King Khalid hospital has undergone tremendous changes at every level. The hospital is adopting new technologies, hiring and training new professionals and preparing the hospital for better challenges to serve the Saudi Arabian population. The change needed in the King Khalid Hospital is limited to certain sections of the communication needs. 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