To provide timely, quality and efficient medical services, medical staffs need to be accountable of their actions. Positive organizational culture and effective checks and balances within an organization reinforce accountability. This paper discusses the importance of accountability in hospitals and the role of leaders in maintaining positive organizational culture in their facilities.
Why is accountability important in the health care industry?
Medical facilities have the role of offering quality and affordable services; staffs in such organizations should be accountable of their actions. Accountability is of importance in two angles:
Costs: when hospital’s human resources are accountable, there is increases efficiency in a medical facility leading to reduced cost of offering the service, the reduced cost leads to affordable services.
Quality: incase a staff injures a patient; the staff should be accountable and report to proper authorities to have the patient looked into; they should be accountable for the service they offer.
When accountability has been adopted in a hospital, it increased the quality of service and makes the service affordable (Cleverly & Cameron, 2007).
How is an employee’s accountability measured in the health care industry?
Accountability is measured by the rate at which an employee is able to use the available resources effectively, as well as how he/she upholds integrity when it comes to money matters. Accountability is a personal value that every staff should respect and uphold in the facility.
What does a checks and balance process look like in a successful organization?
Checks and balances are internal control tools that are used to monitor the delivery of service and the general operation of an enterprise. Successful checks and balances system has the following characteristics:
- Before making a commitment that involves money, more than one person has to sign and give his approval
- There is no one center of power, however more than one person process in a line of production and are held accountable for the line
- In modern times, and where applicable, there is use of computers with codes and passwords
- When making an invoice, the costs are fragmented in the different heads in which they were incurred
- There is flow of information between the managers and the staffs (Finkler & Ward, 2006).
How does accountability affect an organization’s working culture?
Organization culture affects the way people in an organization work, the way they perceive things and the way they interact with each other. An organization with high levels of accountability has the staffs willing to work as a team for the benefit of the company; they develop element of integrity at individual and team level that becomes a positive organizational culture.
On the other hand, an organization that does not uphold high levels of accountability will have employees who are actively looking for opportunities to defraud the organization; it will be characterized with culture that rewards corruption. The result is a company with a negative culture (Ika, 2009).
How can you maintain a positive working culture and avoid a working culture of blame?
To maintain a positive working culture, leaders in an organization has the role of forging an acceptable code of conduct and put on measure to see the implementation of the ethical code of conduct (Aidemark, 2001).
The best way to reinforce and maintain positive working capital is by development of good communication strategy in the organization; there should be free flow of information. Leaders should be in the forefront in holding and maintaining positive culture, they should be willing to train new employees on the organizations operations and the moral values it hold. Conflicts are not evitable in organizations; management should develop effective conflict resolution strategies (Raciborska, Hernández & Glassman, 2008).
Conclusion
Medical facility staffs need to be accountable in their actions; this will facilitate the provision of quality and affordable services. Leaders in medical facilities have the role of maintaining high integrity and positive culture amongst human resources.
References
Aidemark, L. (2001). Managed health care perspectives: a study of management accounting reforms on managing financial difficulties in a health care organization, European Accounting Review, 10(3), 545-560.
Cleverly, W. O., & Cameron, A. E. (2007). Essentials of health care finance. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett
Finkler, S. A., & Ward, D. M. (2006). Accounting fundamentals for health care management. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett.
Ika, L. (2009). Project success as a topic in project management journals. Project Management Journal, 40(4), 6-19.
Raciborska, D., Hernández, P., & Glassman, A. (2008). Accounting For Health Spending In Developing Countries. Health Affairs, 27(5), 1371-1380.