Leadership within any organization plays a crucial role in the efficiency of work, high productivity, employees’ satisfaction level, quality of the provided services, and organization’s development. Careful assessment of the business practices, of the core elements of the operations, and the team members offers guidelines for the strategies that the organization can undertake to improve the quality of service. The purpose of this paper is to conduct a thorough analysis of a patient and family care facility, to identify its strengths and weaknesses, to analyze the team, and to provide strategic alternatives for improvement.
Business Practices
The healthcare sector is a complex organism that is full of complicated processes. The first thing that comes to mind when healthcare facilities are mentioned is about doctors, nurses, and patients. However, it goes beyond that, because healthcare has the business side that requires careful management and people who have expertise in such fields as budgeting, human resources, information technologies, and more (Stoltz, 2017). Having professionals in those areas is beneficial for the organizations, and with the implementation of proper business practices, the improvements would come.
Different organizations implement various practices and activities intending to make the work within the team more efficient and the patients more satisfied. In the modern world, it is crucial to implement suitable information technology usage and integrate programs that can be helpful for both the staff and the patients. Providing proper team member training is significant for successful work. Leaders need to remember that the members of staff are the front face of the facility, and it is fundamental to train them properly to deliver high-quality service. Another critical part of healthcare organizations is to encourage a care-oriented environment (Infinity Research, 2018). Keeping your staff aware of the patient’s record, small things like a smile or a greeting by name, and even active listening can bring positive results.
Patient education is one more business practice that healthcare organizations should strive to integrate. Providing necessary information and educating the clients of healthcare organizations can create a unique service, which will generate positive feedback and improve the overall performance of the facility (Infinity research, 2018). Patients who have basic knowledge of the problem, who know how the system is working, and are aware of the algorithm of procedures are more likely to express positive attitudes to staff members.
The implementation of various business practices with the aim of the development of the healthcare organization is a process that requires financial investments and investments in time and human resources. The resources can be limited, which might impose additional challenges for the facility. Consequently, it is crucial to have a strategy that will integrate business practices in the most efficient way for a specific healthcare facility.
Patient and Family Centered Care Tool (PFCC)
Setting Description
The table below describes the significant strengths and weaknesses in the domains, which will help to identify further areas that require improvement.
Strengths and Weaknesses of the Organization
Area of Improvement
The areas that require improvement within this specific patient/family care centered organizations are personnel education, charting and documentation control, and leadership style. Educating employees on how to work with new equipment and electronic databases, and how to construct a conversation with patients is crucial. New technologies introduce original documentation and patient record system, and it is vital to make it as efficient as possible, which requires proper training within this area as well. Another essential issue is combining different leadership styles because a smart mix of various traits can produce positive outcomes. Besides major areas for improvement, it is necessary to look at the organization in general and implement the system change.
Improvement Strategy
The section above identified the areas of improvement for the assessed healthcare organization. In more detail, the suggested strategies include changing the system’s hardware and software, developing a unique organizational culture, and investing in further education and training of the professionals. Restructuring the working process within the facility, using software programs that help to have detailed and accessible at any time patients’ records, is a major enhancement. Modifying the leadership style will contribute to the creation of the workplace culture, which will produce more of the ideas and solutions.
New software implementation, in turn, requires thorough training of the personnel. Besides advanced technology training, this healthcare organization requires additional courses and seminars for the members of the team, directed at the attitudes towards patients and care about them (Braithwaite, 2018). The combination of those strategies can lift the analyzed facility to the next level.
System or Change Theory
The primary aspect of the proposed improvement strategy is based on the system model of change. Without any doubt, specific changes should be implemented in separate areas of the facility, like personnel professionalism, the order in the documentation, and change in leadership style. However, it is crucial to look at patient/family care centered facility as at one organism, in which separate fixing of details would not significantly change the picture. As the system models of change suggest, they are people, culture, task, technology, design, strategy (Juneja, 2015). Consequently, when one of the variables goes through change, it influences the other parts as well. Implementing the improvements throughout the whole organization, instead of trying to fix the pieces is more effective for healthcare organizations.
Consequently, within the analyzed healthcare facility, crucial changes will be implemented in the people, culture, and technology areas, which will result in a favorable impact on the other aspects of the organization. Adjusting the leadership style will focus on people within the facility, while additional education techniques for the personnel will focus on creating a positive culture among the professionals and patients. Integrating new software and innovative technologies will emphasize the technological development of the organization. Simultaneously, other areas within this healthcare facility will experience a change under the influence on the described parts.
Financial Implications
Every improvement strategy requires financial investments and specific work done. The major expenses for the suggested improvement strategies will lie down in implementing more of information technologies into the working process, and thus, making the operations automated where possible. Training and additional education for the personnel will also require financial costs. Those two major areas need the most significant changes for this specific patient/family care facility. However, it is crucial to keep in mind that those changes serve as improvements for future operations and can increase the financial assets of the organization in the long-term.
Budgetary expenditures for the automatization of the documentation process and the training of employees will justify themselves. They will provide a better experience for the patients, leading to the progress in the overall performance.
Methods
A suitable method for the implementation of the suggested improvements can be the 5S methodology. The 5S approach helps the organization to “change for the better and allows the enhancement of efficiency and productivity” (Patel & Thakkar, 2014, p. 774). The five steps are: sort, strengthen, shine, standardize, and sustain (Patel & Thakkar, 2014). First, it is important to identify the pieces that are unnecessary and eliminate them. Maintaining positive and beneficial aspects is the next stage of the improvement process. After that, it is crucial to make sure that the working space is clean, which is essential for the healthcare organization.
Creating clear standards for the personnel to maintain the changes and keep track of the working operations goes next. The final step of the 5S method would be following the rules, sticking to the necessary activities, and sustaining the improvements (Patel & Thakkar, 2014). This type of methodology is a clear and detailed guide for the integration of the improvement strategy within the patient/family care facility.
Multidisciplinary Team
Collaborative work of the members of the multidisciplinary team plays a significant role in the implementation of the improvement strategy for the healthcare organization. The table above lists some of group members, who are the representatives of the area that will undergo essential changes. For instance, Brian, as the chief of staff, will adopt new leadership styles and will integrate them into the working process and into empowering the employees.
The human resource manager will work on the employees’ adaptation to the improvement strategy. The head of the IT department will have to thoroughly observe and control the new technological implementations and supervise the employees’ training in this area. Hence, each of those team members needs to focus on the specific area of improvement. However, at the same time, they should work together to achieve greater results.
Team Diversity
The team is a critical element in the operations of every healthcare organization. Canadian Collaborative Team Initiative identified diverse groups as those that “comprise members of different healthcare professions collaborating on service delivery and decision making” (Mitchel et al., 2015, p. 218). The healthcare organization discussed in this paper is an excellent example of a diverse team and the challenges that interprofessional teams impose. Team diversity brings more insights to the emerging problems, and with proper leadership, helps to come up with a practical solution, rather than be uncertain about the situation.
However, there are still many burdens because knowledge sharing in the healthcare industry might be problematic across professional fields. Leader inclusiveness plays a crucial role to help overcome those burdens. Analysis of different opinions and reflection on them, and uniting it into one general idea during team interactions is a challenging task for a leader (Mitchel et al., 2015). Nevertheless, encouraging team diversity and the ability to work with it can contribute to the excellence of the team.
Leadership Theories
A leadership type chosen for a specific organization is integral for the working environment and all the crucial parts of the operations. Even though leadership is something intangible and cannot be seen, the efficiency of work and the patients’ experiences highly depend on it. For instance, servant leadership suggests that if one is a true leader, this person should position themselves as a servant. Servant leadership values care for other members of the team, sets ethical behavioral examples, and believes that proper attitudes encourage passion in others. Demonstrating proper care is a crucial element of servant leadership.
Empowering the team members and building trust within the team, sharing power, and creating safe space are the characteristics of servant leadership and are irreplaceable practices for healthcare organizations (Frey, 2018). Implementation of the parts of this leadership theory into healthcare management practices can produce favorable results for the organization.
Transformational leadership is one more theory that can be applied in the clinical industry. According to Kumar and Khiljee (2016), transformational leadership implies that “people will follow a leader who inspires them through vision, passion, and enthusiasm” (p. 64). The researchers also suggest that transformational leaders can encourage the change and that they can put their own interested below the reformation of the healthcare organization. Besides, the adherents of this leadership style realize that there is a need for improvement, and instead of finding the ways to overcome this need, they deal with it (Kumar & Khiljee, 2016). Therefore, along with servant leadership, participative leadership is a good fit for healthcare management for this organization.
One can argue that the combination of the servant and transformational leadership styles is a perfect fit for the improvement of the analyzed healthcare facility. Firstly, as far as transformational leaders encourage the change and realize the need for enhancements, it would be crucial for this specific organization chief of staff to adapt this style’s traits. Servant leaders, in turn, focus on the caring aspect of the work environment. The analyzed facility requires improvements in the workplace culture and additional training for the employees’ attitudes, and integrating some of the traits of this leadership style will have a positive effect. Therefore, implementing the key features of the servant and transformational leadership will lift facilitate the improvement process for this patient/family care organization.
Implementation of Strategy
The sections above describe the areas of improvement, the chosen strategies, and the methodology that will be used for this specific patient/family care facility. The implementation of the improvement strategy is a time and money consuming process. The estimated period for the changes can take up to several months. Based on the 5S methodology, focusing on the specific areas and carefully following the steps can make the implementation process smooth. Consequently, integrating new strategies into the organization should not be underestimated and treated with passion and enthusiasm.
Communication to Organization
It is crucial to choose the right way of presenting the change to the team members and the organization in general. Organizing a staff meeting is the first step in implementing the changes. Many questions can emerge throughout the presentation of future change. The leaders should be fully prepared for that and should make sure that their subordinates understand that the improvements will influence everyone in a positive way, including leaders themselves. Besides the meeting, another way of communicating the changes to the professionals will be a prior notice and the list of thorough guidelines that underline the responsibilities for each member.
It is a time-consuming process, but the employees must get the perspective of what will change and what is required from their side. Also, scheduling one-on-one meetings of the subordinates with the leaders of the departments will simplify the team members’ understanding of the improvements’ implementation. Thus, successful communication of the agenda to the organizations is a challenging but achievable process.
Tools for the Team
Suggested strategies for improvement imply specific tools, or guidelines, for the team members. Besides tangible items, like new gadgets that support new integrated software, there will be intangible tools that make an emphasis on restructuring the work of the facility.
Among those, there are lectures followed by full-day workshops, where personnel members can apply new methods in practice. It can be useful to collaborate with the leaders of other healthcare facilities because a higher number of insights can create more exceptional results. Another helpful tool is creating interprofessional teams that include patient representatives for workshops to test new strategies, evaluate them and see if all of the new methods fit within the organization (Lavoie‐Tremblay, 2015). Therefore, the tools for the team have an intangible nature, mostly focusing on practice and experience.
A crucial tool for the team is self-assessment, and it “has been identified as a key aspect of professionalism” (Gremigni, Casu, and Sommaruga, 2016, p. 1047). The analyzed healthcare facility members will go through various questionnaires that will aim to identify personal competencies and aspects that require attention. Also, the self-evaluation tool will help to determine the responsibilities of the employees throughout the improvement strategy implementation and to analyze their performance and the perception of change (Gremigni et al., 2016).
Moreover, implementing interviews with team members and peer evaluation can be useful tools for the team as well. The combination of different techniques and adequate attention to self-assessment results will help to integrate the change smoothly and evaluate its results.
References
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