Executive Summary
Cardiovascular disease can be one of the most challenging diseases and heart complications if not addressed within the appropriate time. As more and more patients in the United States continued to report similar complications, it was necessary for different hospitals to double their researches and come up with new methods of treating the disease. This paper, therefore, is a case analysis of the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, which is part of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In the paper, there is an overview of the hospital and its organizational structure; the paper then goes ahead to describe in detail the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center and some of the developments that have been experienced in the center. The paper ends with a summary of some of the facts and the necessary developments in the hospital.
Brigham and Women’s Hospital has been an outstanding hospital providing the very best services to the patients around the Boston area. Having faced several growing competitions from the other hospitals who had been giving similar medical services, this hospital decided to invest much in coming up with the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center which would become one of the topmost centers giving the necessary care and treatment for cardiovascular disease. In this paper, there is a historical background that gives an overview of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and how it has developed since it was created. There is also a thorough description of the organizational structure of the hospital and some of the managerial operations that take place in order to compete with the other hospitals in the Boston area giving cardiovascular treatment. There is an ongoing strategic meeting discussing how to overcome the challenges that have been facing the center. The paper ends with a summary that explains the major facts in this hospital and how future cardiovascular disease treatment can be done in the hospital.
Introduction
The opening of Brigham and Women’s Hospital: Shapiro Cardiovascular Center was one of the greatest achievements which would make treatment easy and also provide the best patient care through the application of more improved facilities and staff. This center was established in 1980 when three specialty hospitals located in Boston; Longwood Medical Area in Massachusetts decided to merge. The first hospital was Robert Breck Brigham which had been founded in serving patients suffering from arthritis and debilitating diseases of the joints; the second was Boston Women Hospital which mainly provided women and newborn’s care. The third hospital was Peter Bent Brigham which was serving sick people in their indigent situations. These three hospitals merged to reflect an intensive competition from the Massachusetts General Hospital. The services provided by both the private and private medical practitioners were unable to beat the provisions by the newly formed BWH. To make the hospital a single entity, there was the intensive construction of tunnels and hallways which connected two of the hospitals, and then a new Building Tower was constructed in the same place that would serve as the center for surgical and medical care (Lilly, 2007). Although the different hospitals retained their operational and instructional autonomy, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, BWH, evolved in the following few years to become a unified medical entity.
Some years later, the hospital started to offer medical classes for Harvard Medical School which was seen by many to be a success story. It therefore played a grand role of education the youngsters and physicians-in-training. Their services were greatly regarded as the best in the nation, and very soon they would start offering the necessary scientific researches and care for patients. Later in 2007, the hospital recorded over 12,000 employees, who included about 2,800 nurses and over 1,700 medical researchers. There was also a similar number for the physicians and the fellows being trained. Because the hospital had become a centre with appropriate medical prowess to the entire country, it attracted very many players. More students and physicians continued to come to the hospital hence becoming an educational campus (Lilly, 2007).
The Hospital’s Structure: Leadership and Competency
The BWH has been having a complex but workable organizational structure which has been seeing successful operations being done. The organizational structure of the hospital has been put in a manner that it mirrors a number of medical centers in the United States. This consists of non-clinicians, physicians and other relevant personnel who have been given the responsibilities of ensuring all strategies are put in place, all acquisitions and mergers are addressed in an appropriate manner, all budgetary allocations are done competently, space and budgetary allocation, marketing, information and technological management, and so on (Griffith & White, 2006). There also the integration of technical experts, management, and other medical professionals who provide the best of medical services to the clients and patients.
In the organization, there is a high level of integration which defines the structure of the company. These include key leadership and governance competencies which have been outlining the abilities, leadership skills, and some of the behavioral characteristics needed by the management in all the levels of the organization. At Shapiro, there is a high integration and establishment of ethics and values that have become the rightful foundation in terms of leadership management, and accountability.
There is the application of a structural profile that outlines the key behaviors, in al the managerial structure. This will be applied for the supervisors, managers, directors, and ministers, even to the employees in the organization. All the ineffective behaviors that may occur here are as well addressed in advance. The kind of structure has also been applied in helping the managers in executing their functions in providing health care services to the clients of the hospital. Managers have also been using the profile for talent management, issues to do with staffing and assessing the expectations from performance in the organization (Griffith & White, 2006).
Key Issues Presented In the Case Study
In this case analysis, our major interest was in the hospital’s Shapiro Cardiovascular Center. As the hospital continued to grow, the issue of cardiovascular complications continued to increase among the patients. This is a disease which is associated with abnormalities in the blood vessels, the heart, and sometimes with the peripheral vessels, the veins, and arteries. In 2007, this hospital carried out an investigation which indicated that the disease was costing the people of the country over 280 billion dollars in its treatment. The common heart complications gave an overall percentage of about 64 percent, with the major signs and symptoms being heat failure, coronary vein disease, and increased blood pressure. At the time, the hospital’s physicians, cardiologists, surgeons, diagnostic radiologists, and the common nurses had been greatly involved in giving the appropriate medical care to these cardiovascular patients. As time went by, all these experts continued to pioneer for better techniques which would be applied in giving remedy to the condition. These new methods included angioplasty and angiography which would be handled by heart surgeons. Later, more researches proved that angioplasty would be the most appropriate way of dealing with the disease. In the same time, all other experts in the hospital continued to expand their treating expertise which ended up bringing light to the angioplasty of the peripheral blood vessels.
SWOT Analysis
There are a number of varied issues that have been noted in this company. These may be strengths, or weaknesses to the company. Therefore, this will be presented by SWOT analysis.
Having tried to establish the best care for cardiovascular disease at Boston, BWH was still facing a lot of competition from the Boston area. This competition was being given by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, BIDMC, which is located just across the street near BWH. This was also having a keener connection with Harvard Medical School hence gaining a better reputation than BWH. Very soon BIDMC announced a new center for cardiovascular complications which was opened at the same Longwood Medical Area. Another hospital in the area, Massachusetts General Hospital, MGH, was also named among the best cardiovascular care givers and it offers almost exact services in the treatment of the disease just like BWH, and integrating similar organizational and departmental functions (Hannan et al, 1997). This competition saw the hospital indulging in further research and building of another center which would elevate it from its degrading position in the treatment of cardiovascular disease.
Solutions and strategies to the issues described
In the organization, there have been a number of strategies that have been put in place in order to ensure the above issues are addressed. For instance, there has been the need to ensure appropriate management structures so as to boost performance in the organization. The organization has also been coming up with ways of boosting its performance through making use of the possible strengths and opportunities that present themselves for the organization. The have been the need to come up with better ways of carrying out research so that more and more clients can be given the appropriate medical attention. Once that has been done, the organization will be also able to perform better and outdo its competitors (Hannan et al, 1997).
For the better parts of its operations, BWH has continued to make extra efforts which would integrate cardiovascular cancer treatment within its existing premises and facilities. According to MedPAC (2005), the hospital partnered with Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as a way of improving and integrating more facilities in treating the complication. The ultimate goal here would be planning for a future center which would be managed by the hospital but purposely dealing with cardiovascular disease. This would ensure all the problems faced in the organization are solved and by so doing come up with promising solutions.
The vision of the new center was to become the leading provider and shopping centre for the best treatments for the cardiovascular disease and any other related complications. Having created an extra space of operation at the new center, it was hoped that there would be reduced congestion and hence be able to provide the patients with the necessary attention and treatment. The ten-storey Shapiro Center has since then been capable of house all the out-patients, the in-patients, giving laboratory testing, and testing for any cardiovascular complications. This has been the right way through which the center has been able to offer the necessary treatment for the disease (Hannan et al, 1997). Today, the center is hoped to become one of the largest centers for cardiovascular treatment in the country.
Herzlinger: Strategic Innovation Recommendation
The outlines given by Herzlinger are quite bold in coming up with plans that are consumer-driven and systems that can deliver the best affordable, and high-quality health care to all people. This is what brings in the innovative idea that cannot be easily rivaled. Through this innovative power, the organization can be able to realize a lot of goals that may not have been achieved in the very first place. Therefore, what I would recommend here is to monitor the kind of likable clients to the cardiovascular center and look for ways of retaining the people so that they will end up bringing more and more people to this center. This will help fight the current competition that has been faced from the other organizations. Generally, Herzlinger’s ideas in tackling the crisis being faced in the Health System of the United States has entirely been based on nothing more than having a keener knowledge of all the current difficulties and come up with appropriate insights through which the country can come up with better health care, and hence this can as well be a necessary recommendation for Shapiro Cardiovascular Center.
Appropriate Discussions and Score Card
From the case study, we have been able to note that the center still has a better chance of providing the best services to the patients and developing the hospital as well. This organization’s strategy has been able to improve the quality, decreased costs levied on clients and as well improving access to healthcare for patients, the community, and the society (Griffith & White, 2006).
Balanced Score Card
Organization’s mission
Provide the best health care to the clients through proper and excellence services
Proposed strategies for success
- Operate with increased research.
- Motivate, and retain all medical personnel and researchers.
- Provide the best quality services to patients
- Increased services for workers and patients
Every individual at Shapiro should be aimed in the realized of the Center’s mission and goals.
Growth and learning Perspective
- Motivating and recognizing all staff
Internal Quality and Safety
- Provision of the highest quality in services
Patients and Community Relation
- Increased services
Financial Options and Business Development
- Operating with a 5 percent margin fro increasing the Center’s revenues.
Conclusion
Having seen some of the major progressions that led to the development of the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center, we can agree that it was a long journey which called for the greatest sacrifice and determinations. The issue of financial and technological problems may have as well hindered the development of the hospital but eventually it would be a one big success story. Eventually, the center has been able to provide the necessary care to the patients hence being able to become one of the outstanding centers in the country offering the services. With the involvement of highly trained medical experts, the projections are that the center will keep on improving if it continues to get the necessary support from its mother hospital. The major impression which has to be understood clearly from this case analysis is that Brigham and the Shapiro Center are all part of one great hospital, BWH, which has very big dreams for the people of the country (Griffith & White, 2006). Here, the physicians have all it takes in caring for the patients and giving them the necessary medical attention they would need. Today, for instance, should one patient in the women’s center end up developing a complication, the medical experts specialized in different infectious disease from the other centers will have to come to the hospital and give the necessary care to the patient.
Addendum
There are a number of leadership competencies necessary for any organization. Integrity and Ethics is one of the leadership competencies that have a very big significance. Visioning or strategy will as well have leaders who need to have compelling plans and objectives. Focus on results is also very important since it helps leaders know what their desires and goals should be and how the things will be done. The others include proper judgment, optimism in leadership, enough passion and building of teamwork plus accountability. All these competencies are quite value for a true leader and manager. Therefore, in order to overcome most of my own challenges, I would greatly apply these leadership competencies so that I can be in a position of influencing, mentoring and delegating the relevant duties to all the people who are under me. This will ensure that my organization can realize its goals and objectives within the specified time period.
References
Griffith, J. & White, K. (2006). The Well-Managed Healthcare Organization. Chicago: Health Administration Press.
Hannan, D. Et al. (1997). ‘Coronary Angioplasty volume-outcome relationships for hospital and cardiologists,’ JAMA, 34, 34-76.
Lilly, L. (2007). Pathophysiology of heart disease: a collaborative project of medical experts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Martin, H. (2008). Treatment of Cardiovascular Complications: A therapeutic approach. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
MedPAC. (2005). Testimony before U.S. Senate Committee on Finance. Web.