It is pointless conducting diagnosis at the individual level, because most issues can be addressed at the organization and group level. This statement is not correct and it may only apply in very few isolated cases. It is a statement which should not be used in the current world in which most organizations are in competition with one another. The statement may only apply in cases where individuals are used to collect data without any diagnosis and delivering them to a central point so as to be assessed and diagnosed. Organizations can achieve great effectiveness if individuals forming the organizations are effective (Bushong, 1997).
Diagnosis can simply be described as a way of analyzing the nature of a problem and it can be extended to include the analysis of the causes of a given problem. If all individuals are allowed to bring all their raw data to a group for analysis, the workload at group level is likely to be very huge because minor tasks that could have been sorted out by individuals are carried forward. It is therefore very important to conduct diagnosis at individual level even though most issues can be solved at a central point within the organization (Harris, 2000). Only issues that appear to be complex or issues that individuals are not allowed to handle should be forwarded for group diagnosis so as to be solved. This is the only positive way in which organizations can develop.
In an ideal organization model, every department is connected to one another within the organization. Such a model usually demonstrates that for effective management of any organization to take place, each department within the organization should be effective and this implies that individuals within those departments must be fully involved in management and development of the organization. It is also clear that the level of influence of decisions made relating to an organization gets stronger as one gets closer the top management of an organization. This implies that the decisions made by the managers of an organization have more weight than those made by other stakeholders but every decision at every level is important and should be assessed at the group level.
Self-assessment is one aspect that an organization can consider to be very useful when it wants to make major decisions concerning the development of the organization (Health Canada, 2008). For example, an organization may wish to expand its operations so as to improve its performance. In this case there are a number of surveys that must be undertaken at various levels of the organization. Senior managers of the organization must involve other individuals within the organization to come up with a plan on how self-assessment should be done. At the organization level is where individuals raise their proposals and ask questions relating to the tasks they are supposed to undertake. At this initial stage members of an organization should be able to reflect on and understand the need of conducting self-assessment (Hartley, Cobb, and Hutchinson, 1999).
Organization needs to be prepared before embarking on self-assessment. This means that every organization must have some readiness for the process of self-assessment. Before a self-assessment process is conducted, an organization has to consider various factors such as the readiness of its workers to carry out the assessment. The willingness of leaders of organizations to allow workers to be involved in self-assessment processes is the first step of developing organizations (Sato, Watanabe, Tokui, Kawach and Sugata, 2000). People readiness is another important aspect to be considered before carrying out self-assessment of an organization. The staff in a given organization must have the capacity to conduct an assessment at individual levels before presenting their findings for further assessment at group levels. Every person must be able to conduct diagnosis where possible during data collection process and further diagnosis can be done at organization level (Saunderson, 2009).
The depth of data collection for an organization that wants to conduct self-assessment depends on the amount of information needed for organization’s development. As an individual begins to collect data, there are issues that may arise and an individual may be forced to conduct some diagnosis of the problem so as to record down appropriate data that may be beneficial to the organization. If an individual chooses not to conduct diagnosis, the option is to forward the problem to the organization so as to be solved at the group level (Boardman, 2006). When several problems are forwarded to be solved at group level, a lot of time is likely to be wasted because decision making at group level is usually not easy given the fact every person in the group may have different view from others. It is therefore recommended that only problems that may not be solved by individuals should be forwarded to group levels.
It is not easy to estimate how long a self-assessment process can take within the organization but it depends on the commitments of the stakeholders of the organization. The number of variables to be studied can be decided depending on the time available for the process to be completed. Another aspect that may affect the scope of the process of self assessment is the way the team members are supposed to present their findings to the organization. If individual members are given the freedom to solve issues by themselves, then they are like to do more research and thus come up with proper findings to present to the organization.
Dealing with conflict is an aspect that requires a researcher or any person collecting data to be more careful. Conflict of interest may arise in the field where data is being collected and thus the members of a team collecting the data should just collect all the available data so that all other issues can be resolved at the organization level. In cases where there are no conflicts, individuals should conduct diagnosis and collect relevant data to present to the organization. This ensures that further diagnosis can only be done at an organization level to certify what has already been done (Bothmer, 1996). If individuals are not allowed to conduct diagnosis at individual level then it means that all diagnosis can only be done at the organization level hence creating very cumbersome process at the organization level. Development of any organization must allow for members of the organization to offer their positive contributions even at individual levels.
Diagnosis is a common term in healthcare field. Medical practitioners are trained various ways of conducting diagnosis so that they can even conduct diagnosis at individual levels. There are some diagnoses that can be done at individual levels while others can only be done at group levels. For example, there are some medical conditions that require a team of surgeons to conduct diagnoses before carrying out an operation. Therefore in a medical organization one cannot argue that it is needless to conduct a diagnosis at individual level.
Medical organizations, hospitals and health centers must have proper disaster management plans so as to effectively deal with outbreak of infectious diseases. When there is an outbreak of any infectious disease the situation can easily get out of hand when appropriate measures are not taken early enough. In such situations healthcare professionals must be able to conduct diagnoses for the diseases at individual levels and only refer complicated conditions for diagnoses at group levels. Time is of great essence in controlling an outbreak of an infectious disease otherwise the situation may get out of hand (Guillermo, 2005). The only way to save time in such a situation is to allow individuals to conduct diagnoses and attend to patients appropriately.
For example, an outbreak of a new infectious disease known as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was reported in China in the year 2009. It was reported that the disease was able to spread very fast from China to over twenty eight countries within a very short time. The disease spread to other several countries and killed many people because the cure or prevention of the disease had not been known by then. Some of the people who showed signs of infection were taken to a certain medical facility in China for diagnosis (Smith, 2005). It was a typical case where diagnosis was not done at individual level but at a group level. By the time the diagnosis was over it was established that SARS was actually a viral disease that could be control like other viral diseases. It was after a group diagnosis was conducted that the control of the disease started but many people had already lost their lives.
The first case of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) required a diagnosis to be conducted by a group. The case was complex and needed medical experts to share ideas and come up with a solution. After the first diagnosis was done many health care professionals were trained on how to detect and handle SARS. This meant that doctors and even clinical officers were allowed to conduct diagnoses at individual levels. This is an effective way of detecting and controlling disease outbreaks before they kill many people (Sato, Watanabe, Tokui, Kawachi and Sugata, 2000). The outbreak of SARS proved that diagnosis at individual level is not needless. If at the time of outbreak of SARS individual diagnosis was possible, the outbreak could have been detected earlier and thus it could have been controlled before causing bigger damage.
Disaster management plans should be developed by relevant organizations before the disasters occur. Lack of disaster preparedness results in loss of lives and properties when disasters occur. Outbreaks of diseases are part of disasters and organizations should be prepared to control them. The outbreak of SARS was able to kill many people because of lack of preparedness (Savci, 1999). In fact the situation was worse in Canada and many health workers in Toronto were also quarantined after contracting the virus causing SARS.
After the SARS outbreak healthcare institutions in Canada were required to develop plans at individual levels based on the availability of workers and other resources so as to effectively deal with future disasters. It is not easy to predict disasters and therefore relevant organizations must always be prepared to handle them. The prevention plans developed by each healthcare institution were to be willingly shared with others. Central critical care facility was also to be set up to deal with serious cases that could not be effectively dealt with at individual medical institutions. When all these were put in place other outbreaks that have followed SARS have never killed many people in Canada as did the SARS (Boardman, 2006). The case of SARS demonstrated that there was need to conduct diagnosis at individual levels. Development of medical organizations depends on the positive contributions of every stakeholder in the institutions. At the same time development of any organization depends on the positive contributions of its members. This fact requires that individuals should be allowed to carry out individual assessments and diagnoses where applicable and thus make their contributions to organizations (Boardman, 2006).
In conclusion, it is important to note that a conclusion on any issue is usually difficult to be arrived at in a group consisting of many people. This implies that if workers of an organization are not allowed to solve minor issues at individual levels but refer them to organization levels, the operations within the organizations may not be effective because a lot of time will be spent in solving both major and minor issues. For any organization to sustain its development, all the stakeholders must do their work appropriately and thus there is need to conduct diagnosis at both individual and organization levels.
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