Introduction to Queens Hospital Center
Queen’s hospital Center was established in 1935 to serve the community and provide affordable health care to people from all walks of life. This is a nonprofit making organization aimed at reaching all members of the community with health care services whether they are able to pay or not.
This means that all the main objectives of expanding the facility over the years is not increasing revenue, but creating more space to assist more people by offering satisfactory services. Despite being nonprofit making, they are able to provide personalized and specialized healthcare services including inpatient admissions and surgery.
Mission statement
The mission statement of Queen’s Hospital center is to “provide quality, comprehensive care to all people living in new York regardless of whether they are able to pay or not” (Queens Hospital Center, 2010 p. 20). This implies that the organization is mainly focused on providing and supporting the community.
Their commitment to this mission statement is demonstrated by the programs the organization is running one of them being the smoking cessation program. From this, the organization is able to reach directly to the community at their very point of need.
Since this program is offered at no cost at all, it accessible to everyone, including the low income earners and the unemployed. Clinical care is provided by the hospital in terms of treatment to patients and any other health related support required and these services are given by a qualified team of doctors and nurses.
Patient safety is adhered to in terms of both physical and emotional safety by providing a clean and conducive environment. Patients’ records are also kept confidential to ensure that they do not fall in the hands of people who may inflict emotional injury to the patients.
On the part of education, they offer programs such as the smoke cessation program to ensure that the community is enlightened on their health issues (Jayaratne et al, 2002). They are able to identify community needs by conducting frequent research activities hence being able to address the most pressing of those needs first.
Structure of the organization
Being a social service organization, Queen’s Hospital center has a formal arrangement which is aimed at ensuring the programs are delivered to the community in a way that advocates for positive transformation in the social statute laws and policies. In such cases, the structure must be favorable to the community in that they willingly participate in the programs being offered to them, otherwise the whole thing would be rendered useless.
The success of this organization is not measured by the amount of profits it makes but by the extent to which they are able to reach and address the needs of the community (Cooke & Rousseau, 1998). The organization is structured in a way that enables all members to participate in community development at whatever capacity, hence making a contribution to the fulfillment of the mission statement.
The board involved in making decisions includes among other the doctors, nurses, interns, therapists both physical and occupational, administrators, social workers, and the directors. Each party has the task of making decisions in their respective capacities with the major decision making responsibility lying with the administrators.
Organizational culture
The culture at Queens Hospital center is based on providing services to the community and meeting the training needs of the employees hence ensuring customer satisfaction. This is done by providing high quality services at a cost that all people in the community can afford. This particular culture is common in all departments since it forms a major part of the organization’s mission statement.
This implies that social workers are the most important people in the organization since they are directly involved in making this culture practical. Social work training is mandatory to all employees since this is the core business of the organization.
They are therefore able to handle their specific tasks with the community needs in mind hence ensuring that they are able to meet the main objectives of the organization (Rhydderch et al, 2005). The training sessions are carried out frequently and facilitated by the social workers such that they are able to share the real life experiences which they encounter when dealing with the community.
As a result of this, strategies are laid to ensure that the community needs are met to the best level possible and the result of adhering to this culture is having clients who are satisfied with the services being offered. This culture also provides a chance for all people to participate irrespective of their gender, race, age and so on.
Financials
According to Queen’s Hospital center financial report, the main sources of funding includes outpatient and inpatient services, donors’ remittances, fund raising activities organized by the organization such as garage sales and funds drives and other specialized care units such as dentistry and optical departments. These departments offer their respective services at a cost hence bringing in more income to run the organization.
In as much as it is a community based organization, the people working in there need to be paid in order to meet their daily expenses. From this financial report therefore, it is clear that salaries and wages are one of the highest expenditures for the organization (Rubin, 2002).
The management believes that investing in the workforce is the most important since these are the people working on the ground and their satisfaction is key to the success of the organization. The second highest expenditure is on providing patients education in programs such as smoke cessation. These activities do not contribute in any in terms of revenue meaning that the organization has to go deeper into its budget to meet these expenses.
The third expenditure item is on undertaking community campaigns especially on occasions such as cancer awareness day and HIV/AIDs day. These campaigns are necessary in the sensitization of the community. The fourth expense is that of utilities such as electricity, water and fuel bills which are required for the normal running of the organization.
Finally on the list are food expenses for the inpatients, most of whom prefer to be provided for food from their own homes hence reducing this expense (Ostroff, 1992).
Governance
Queen’s hospital center is governed by a board of directors headed by a president. These are elective posts and the members are selected from within the organization and they have to be medical experts (Mills & Woods, 2004). This team works within the provisions of a constitution and the president presides over the board meetings and the issues discussed therein are communicated to other members of staff for action to be taken.
The reason as to why these people are selected from the organization is because they already have an idea of the organization’s mandate and are aware of the challenges and opportunities on the ground. The current team is made up of ten directors, the president and vice president who takes the position of the president in case he is absent in the meetings.
Besides this board, the organization also involves advisory boards ones in a while to assist in laying down policies. These are experts from other organizations and their main involvement is to bring out the aspects that can be seen from outside the organization. These committees are made up of government officials serving in the public health department and other high ranking health specialists.
Accrediting bodies
Besides the in house board, there are other governmental and non governmental bodies which affect the day to day running of the organization. One of these bodies is the Rehabilitation Accreditation Commission which governs facilities offering rehabilitation services such as the smoking cessation program being offered in the organization.
This institution has to be involved in making any decision in such programs so that they are able to regulate the proposals and align them with the existing bylaws (Angle & Perry, 1998). The other external institution that is directly linked to this organization is the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education which governs the education sector in all medical facilities.
This body ensures that people working in these organizations are updated with the current information hence ensuring that they are equipped to handle their clients with expertise. These bodies come up with different policies frequently and all medical institutions are expected to adhere to these rules. In a way therefore, they increase costs in these organizations since they have to be paid for their services and consultations.
Code of ethics
The third section of NASW Code of ethics which addresses the issue of Social Workers’ ethical responsibilities in practice settings is one of the first things any new employee or intern is made aware of on joining the organization and breach or compromise on the same is treated as a serious ethical offence.
It however gets tricky especially on an area such as that of education and training where a social worker who training the clients is only expected to handle that which is under his or her scope. The problem here arises where clients are not aware of these scopes and they expect any social worker to be able to handle all their concerns (Maloney & Federle, 1993).
This obligation is therefore in conflict with the fact that social workers are expected to give their clients all the information that is relevant to their situations. This can however be corrected by providing an all rounded training to all social workers so that they can be well equipped for their work.
One of the opportunities available to this organization to participate in these social and political actions is that of offering civic education to the community to educate them on their political rights and duties. These activities provide an opportunity for the interns and members of staff to make a positive contribution to the society according to the mission statement.
These can be done by organizing workshops in colleges and universities where a majority of young people are as well as within the facility when dealing with the day to day clients (Duncan et al, 1998). The campaigns will ensure that young people in the community are not misled by the social and political stereotypes all over the media.
Physical environment
One of the features that are visible in the organization is the high level of hygiene being observed in the organization. This is a big plus to the organization since clients are comfortable and they develop a sense comfort when within the organization’s premises. The environment is also conducive since there is no unnecessary noise.
These features aide delivery of services since clients are comfortable enough even to wait on the queue on a busy day without having much to complain about. This kind of orderliness also ensures that member of staff are able to carry on with their work peacefully since they do not have to handle numerous complaints from the customers.
Major organizational problems
From this analysis, it is clear that the organization is operating near its full potential. However, there are a few things which need to be addressed and this includes concentrating more on the training needs of the members of staff and interns. Any person joining the organization in any capacity should first go through social work training in preparation for any community emergency that might arise.
This is because of the unforeseen occurrences which come up and require more people to be on the ground in order to be in control of the situation. In case this happens and the people who are trained in social work are few, then there will be an inadequacy.
Reference List
Angle, H. L., & Perry, J. L. (1998). An empirical assessment of organizational commitment and organizational effectiveness. Administrative science quarterly, 1-14.
Cooke, R. A., & Rousseau, D. M. (1998). Behavioral Norms and Expectations A Quantitative Approach To the Assessment of Organizational Culture. Group & Organization Management, 13(3), 245-273.
Duncan, W. J., Ginter, P. M., & Swayne, L. E. (1998). Competitive advantage and internal organizational assessment. The Academy of Management Executive, 12(3), 6-16.
Jayaratne, S. P. D., Croxton, T. A. J. D., & Mattison, D. M. S. W. A. C. S. W. B. C. D. (January 01, 2002). Race, Practice Behaviors and the NASW Code of Ethics. Journal of Social Service Research, 28, 3, 65-89.
Maloney, W. F., & Federle, M. O. (1993). Practical models for organizational assessment. Journal of Management in Engineering, 9(1), 64-81.
Mills, S. S., & Woods, P. (January 01, 2004). Starting a corporate college. A New York hospital takes an in-depth approach to employee training. Healthcare Executive, 19, 4.)
Ostroff, C. (1992). The relationship between satisfaction, attitudes, and performance: An organizational level analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77(6), 963.
Rhydderch, M., Edwards, A., Elwyn, G., Marshall, M., Engels, Y., Van den Hombergh, P., & Grol, R. (2005). Organizational assessment in general practice: a systematic review and implications for quality improvement. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 11(4), 366-378.
Rubin, J. (2002). Gender, equality and the culture of organizational assessment. Gender, Work & Organization, 4(1), 24-34.
Queens Hospital Center. New York. A staffwide sense of ownership. (January 01, 2010). Hospitals & Health Networks / Aha, 84, 9.)