The Diversity Health Center is a health service organization (HSO) providing its patients with primary, preventive, and mental health care. It offers care to citizens of Ludowici, Georgia, and two other towns in the same state. It is reasonable to evaluate this facility, and the Baldrige criteria seem suitable for that purpose. These are seven concepts, including “leadership, strategy, customer focus, workforce focus, information management, operations, and results” (Badgett et al., 2019, p. 4). According to the available information on the HSO’s website, it is possible to evaluate the organization according to the leadership, strategy, and workforce focus. The analysis will reveal some challenges, and it will be explained how one can address them.
According to the selected Baldrige criteria, it is possible to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the Diversity Health Center. On the one hand, positive aspects include a clear mission statement and the fact that the HSO offers comprehensive care and same-day appointments (Diversity Health Center, n.d.). On the other hand, the assessment can also reveal a few disadvantages. In particular, the HSO fails to have a specific system describing how upper management can lead the organization, while ordinary employees do not face exemplary workforce policies, which can subject them to work overload. This opinion is present because the organization’s website does not feature this information.
Thus, if the Diversity Health Center wants to qualify for Baldrige recognition, it should address the identified weaknesses. Firstly, promoting shared leadership seems an appropriate response to insufficient leadership in the HSO. This approach was chosen because it establishes collaborative relationships between leaders and subordinates, promotes shared governance and teamwork, and motivates continuous learning (Chatterjee et al., 2018). I would make upper management include their subordinates in decision-making because there should be a connection between leaders and ordinary employees to meet the corresponding Baldrige criterion. Secondly, the organization should ensure that its employees do not suffer from work overload because it adversely affects the quality of care and patient safety (Pérez-Francisco et al., 2020). I would advocate for hiring additional healthcare professionals because this step could reduce workload. This scenario will denote that all the employees are equally involved in the work processes, which is necessary to meet the Baldrige standard.
While preparing the HSO for Baldrige recognition, I expect an increased incidence of conflicts. Arguments will arise between leaders and their subordinates as well as between same-level employees. Such adverse events are likely to occur because a modified leadership style and new healthcare workers bring ambiguity. Stakeholders require time to get accustomed to the new environment and people, meaning that conflict situations are possible shortly after the interventions are implemented.
If I were a current healthcare administrator at the HSO, I would draw specific attention to potential conflicts. A suitable response would be to rely on a collaborative strategy that implies establishing contact between conflicting parties (Walker & Daniels, 2019). Once this approach is implemented, it is possible to expect that all the arguments can be turned into opportunities to improve operations and interpersonal relationships.
In conclusion, the essay has demonstrated how it is possible to evaluate the Diversity Health Center according to the Baldrige criteria. Weaknesses in the leadership and workforce focus areas revealed that specific steps were needed to address the problems. They included implementing a specific leadership style and hiring new employees to reduce employees’ workload. These interventions could result in workplace conflicts, and I would rely on collaborative conflict management to solve them.
References
Badgett, R., Chen, J., May, D. R., Field, T., & Greiner, K. A. (2019). Can the Federal Baldrige survey measure workforce well-being in an Academic Health Center? Kansas Journal of Medicine, 12(1), 4-6.
Chatterjee, R., Suy, R., Yen, Y., & Chhay, L. (2018). Literature review on leadership in healthcare management. Journal of Social Science Studies, 5(1), 38-47.
Diversity Health Center. (n.d.). Our mission. Web.
Pérez-Francisco, D. H., Duarte-Clíments, G., del Rosario-Melián, J. M., Gómez-Salgado, J., Romero-Martín, M., & Sánchez-Gómez, M. B. (2020). Influence of workload on primary care nurses’ health and burnout, patients’ safety, and quality of care: Integrative review. Healthcare, 8(1), 12.
Walker, G. B., & Daniels, S. E. (2019). Collaboration in environmental conflict management and decision-making: Comparing best practices with insights from collaborative learning work. Frontiers in Communication, 4, 2.