Introduction
Health services delivery has faced various challenges ranging from financial constraints to dissatisfaction of the patients as regards the services they receive. It thus calls for a favorable decision-making process that would be essential in the management of healthcare services despite these inherent challenges.
Currently, there is a popular belief that most of the problems can partially be ameliorated by improving the quality of the medical decision-making process. How can the provision of medical services be accomplished without much negative impact on the patients, despite the budget cut? Which departments will be affected most, and why? These are the inherent questions we as managers need to ask ourselves, before indulging in the process of decision making (Kuder, 2005).
It is critical to note that deciding to cut the budget of some specific departments will require a wide approach and knowledge. Organizations are known to have cultures and beliefs that guide operations. This is because these cultural values are considered paramount by the organizational members in their daily operations (Rundall, 2007).
Within these cultures are subcultures that are found in various units of the organization, making the process of decision making quite tricky for one manager. However, with wide consultation, the ideas of how the idea budget cut will affect different departments differently would be established, considering the past operations. In this dimension, Informed Decision Tool (IDT) will prove very critical in unlocking the desired information that would guide decision making criteria, hence goal achievement (Rundall et al., 2007).
Again, by including opinions of those who the decision was going to impact more, it would help me make them understand the nature and potential impact of the budget cut. In this way, the post-budget cut period must run without any adverse hitch to the benefits of the patients as well as ensure sustainable operations in terms of daily activities. Through IDT, accountability, knowledge transfer, questioning opportunities are offered to the respective stakeholders.
Effect of the IDT in decision making process
Accountability
The use of informed decision toolbox allows for the establishment of accountability in various ways. According to Pfeffer & Sutton (2006), healthcare regulatory bodies have for a long time held healthcare organizations responsible for several erroneous mistakes as pertains to service provisions. However, healthcare stakeholders (e.g. patients and communities) have in the recent past been involved in the full accountability demand chorus (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006).
Such critical decisions like introduction of new technology, recruiting and maintenance of new staff, organizational merger, etc. are now pegged on the approval of all stakeholders. Through IDT, the decision to cut the budget would be more transparent since the stakeholders are in a position to observe and create an environment the hospital management accounts for every detailed action publicly. In other words, we as managers are handed the responsibility to ensure the choice made is viable and acceptable to the entire team.
In this perspective, the decision to consult departmental heads or representative will be important in ensuring their ideas are incorporated in the wider decision making process. Other than ensuring that decision making process achieves approval from the parties involved, it also ensures that the people to be affected by the budget cut know in advance what they expect in the post-budget cut period. Additionally, it will be helpful in ensuring that the participants are convinced that this was the best tool available for the situation, following the established evidences through research.
Knowledge transfer
After the establishment of knowledge management program, it becomes easier to “identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness, and learning across the organization” (Rundall et al., 2007). It is observed that the management of knowledge has some specifically planned goals such as shared experience and good innovations to help the decision making process.
Since IDT is dependent on this information, the knowledge management personnel involve people at the grassroots to ensure that their idea is incorporated in the standard level of decision making. They also communicate the knowledge gathered to the team of specialists and managers in the organization, thus creating an avenue for information flow.
Through the knowledge management team, our organization would benefit from this management tool by locating and sharing the found knowledge, give employees opportunity to offer their contribution to the available knowledge base, offer the link of communication between the departmental heads and their team of staff comprised of nurses, physicians and other experts. Even though these roles can be outsourced to external experts, the team holds the responsibility for any accountability issue in the management process and thus through any decision made (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006).
Questioning organization
Through informed decision management tool, it is critical to note that decision making process sometimes rely on the cultural beliefs instilled in an organization. These cultural values are likely to influence the organizational thinking on how to handle the budget cut.
For instance, there’s a common belief that some departments are more sensitive than others, thus require much attention in terms of resource allocation and management. These general cultural beliefs coupled with departmental sub-cultures are exposed in the informed decision management tool. That is, the culture of questioning is instilled among the departmental managers, hence giving way to evidence informed decision making (Kuder, 2005).
The informed management decision making tool is therefore crucial since it gives opportunity to involve managers in the questioning of the evidence based approach that is to be adopted, offers opportunity for seminars to discuss the chosen approach, provides educational opportunity to the managers, and provides necessary link with the researchers (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). In addition, the departmental managers will be in a position to analyze the past events in relation to budget limitations, hence giving room for comparison analysis with the research outcome.
Conclusion
Informed decision making toolbox provides a sure way of integrating research and information within the organizational setting, giving room for a wide range of avenue for consultations. The issue of accountability has for sure been a thorny agenda. This is because stakeholders want every decision made within the organization accounted for because it determines the future operations of the organization. Through wide consultations, there is likely to be less rebellion of criticism on decision that was initially acknowledged by every significant person in the organization (Kuder, 2005).
The tool also provides shared knowledge is also important in the process of critiquing the proposed ideas to counter the budget cut. This is done through constant communication and sharing of information between departmental heads and other members of staff such as nurses and physicians.
Additionally, culture of questioning the proposed idea is instilled among the stakeholders, thus giving every concerned member an opportunity to establish link with the organization’s management. Through such questions, an important evidence-based option would be developed through the discussion of past experiences and researched evidences from other organizations.
Reference List
Kuder, J.M. (2005). The current environment for medical decision making: Alternative efficiency concepts and decision motivation. Journal of Motivation and Emotion. Vol. 19 (3): pp.221-236.
Pfeffer, R., & Sutton, I. (2006). Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Ihiths and Total Nonsense. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Rundall, T.G., Marte, W.P., Arroyo, L., McCurdy, R., Graetz, F., Neuwirth, B.E., et al. (2007). The informed decision toolbox: tools for knowledge transfer and performance improvement. Journal of Healthcare Management. 52 (5): 325-41.