healthcare organization

healthcare organization

The aim of any healthcare organization is the provision of high quality and cost-effective care. The future of healthcare is, however, speculative, and such volatility means that healthcare organizations may fail to deliver the required quality care. Such uncertain environments require competent managerial decisions which can be short term and long term depending on the nature of the organization. Despite the hostile healthcare environment, Southeast Medical Center can incorporate the following recommendations to help meet the needs of the community and deliver the needed quality care.

Recommendation One 

Governance at the corporate level should be strategic, whereas governance at the institutional level should be operational and focused on local community needs and concerns. Governance at the corporate level should be strategic since it introduces the relevant stakeholders to accountability, transparency, and stewardship. Leaders are exposed to practices and processes that improve the vision and mission of the relevant organization. Strategic governance at the corporate level helps reduce the probability of strategic irrelevance, thus ensuring overall success. From the case study, Southeast Medical Center (SMC) learned the significance of strategic governance at the corporate level since it provided the leadership team with the opportunity to communicate the mission and vision of the organization to other stakeholders. Such strategies improve the organizational structure and overall performance.

Governance at the institutional level should be operational, focusing on local community needs. In this case, relevant leaders need to hold discussions with community leaders to determine their concerns, thus seek possible solutions. Success is achieved when physicians and patients collaborate since there is quick delivery of healthcare services. Operations include understanding the systems in place, alliances, and networks present within the community centers that help achieve success. From the case study, SMC learned the significance of targeting the needs of small groups then moving to other similar groups. Such strategies not only help the organization achieve the set goals and objectives within a short time while delivering the quality care required within the community.

Recommendation Two

Each system should develop a detailed mission statement and a set of behavioral norms and culture shared by each facility within the system to enhance cohesiveness. An organization that has a mission statement can identify its main goal, intended audience, and the products and services it will offer to meet its operational needs. More importantly, there is the identification of the organization’s philosophy that enables it to attain a competitive edge over rivals. For SMC, creating and developing a mission statement leads to the relevant stakeholders understanding the intent of the leaders as well as the organization. Such strategies help SMC make competent decisions that help appropriate staff at the organization offer the required medical care since all objectives are aligned.

Cohesiveness is achieved through relevant stakeholders’ aligning and uniting towards a common goal. This can be achieved by setting behavioral norms and cultures that will be observed by all staff at SMC. The organization learned the significance of quality leadership after it set a culture of providing quality care services beginning at the community level. Through meeting the needs of the community, SMC gradually improved its organizational structure and achieved its set goals and objectives. The organization also achieved success through the political decisions as it appointed community leaders to spearhead its operations at the community levels. More importantly, the organization improved its managerial processes achieving success at both internal and external operations. All in all, the future of healthcare is highly speculative, hence the need to have a set of behavioral norms and cultures shared across the relevant organizations.

Recommendation Three  

Systems should buy or contract for services only if the additions will add value to the systems customers and are compatible with the existing mission, values, goals, and culture. Short term contracts help identify any gaps that may hinder the success of the set goals and objectives. SMC is part of the Academic Health Centers (AHC) and thus subjective to the rapidly changing environment of healthcare. As such, SMC is safer, making short term investments until it achieves the required status to make long term investments. From the case study, the healthcare environment is termed as hostile, and medical institutions need to make effective managerial decisions that ensure success. In this case, purchasing or contracting for services adds value to the systems deployed at SMC since it protects the company’s interests in an uncertain market.

SMC experienced losses for a long time, mainly due to privatization. When the organization decided to operate as a private entity, many of the leadership decisions led to losses of human resources and revenue since most of those decisions were long term investments. Additionally, the 1990s saw many AHCs’ struggle in an uncertain healthcare environment leading to SMCs plans lacking the required strategies. After the decision to contract for services only when needed, gradually helped the organization achieves success. The organization also made new plans that mostly involved leadership. Quality leadership leads to the achievement of both short term and long term goals since there is organizational structure. More importantly, there are clear mission and vision statements when contracting for services that add value aiding in meeting set goals and objectives.

Conclusion

As evidenced above, the success or failure of an organization depends on the leadership practiced. From the case study, SMC needed to comprehend and embrace change if it aims to meet the set objectives and goals. In this case, the organizational structure must align with the objectives of all the relevant stakeholders. Through such ways, there is improved organizational performance since there is the success of both internal and external operations.