Leading through Crisis in Health care. Management Case Study Assignment

Leading through Crisis in Health Care
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Institutional Affiliation
Leading through Crisis in Health care
The Case Study
Health is a primal necessity for human existence in modern times. Amidst this certainty, there is also a never worse time that a pandemic could hit the globe considering the role that globalization has played over the recent years. The world has become a global village, meaning that a single happening at a certain location could have worldwide impact. This scenario defines the present prevailing COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is proving to be one of the most significant the healthcare sector has faced in 21st Century surpassing Ebola scare (OECD, 2020). It is an infectious disease that is highly transmissible. The rate of spread and the number of casualties are consequences that highlight the dangerous nature of this pandemic placing healthcare leader in precarious situations where they have to articulate the best response mechanisms to guide people out of this predicament.
It was in late December 2019 and, more precisely, on the eve of the New Year when a pneumonia of unknown cause was detected, reported to the World Health Organization Country Office in the People’s Republic of China. This occurrence was in the Wuhan province in China. The number of patients with the pneumonia had risen to 41 patients by early January 2020 and were already admitted in various hospitals across the country. Despite its exponential spread, many stakeholders including political leaders disregarded the gravity of the situation leading to its presence in various places across the globe. This result was amidst constant intelligence reports providing ominous, classified warnings of the same (Harris, Miller, Dawsey, & Nakashima, 2020).
The lockdown measures in Wuhan stabilized the spread in the Asian country, but then global air transport had facilitated its spread to all continents. 146 countries had the virus by mid-March is doubling the number of patients as a result of super-spreading events including those held for sporting reasons (Anderson, Heesterbeek, Klinkenberg, & Hollingsworth, 2020). Community transmission became the next method of transmission with approximately 2 million cases and casualties at about 125,000 by April 15 (Grossling, Scott, & Hall, 2020). Consequently, countries have enacted lockdowns, social distancing, and closure of learning institutions and businesses as well as the postponement of events. Nevertheless, health practitioners and more importantly, its leadership bear a significant burden of steering the entire global community from this threat and guarantee their wellness.
According to Nyenswah, Engineer, and Peters (2016), a health pandemic, such as the COVID-19 has four phases which include “crisis recognition and early mobilization, the emergency phase, the declining epidemic, and the long tail.” In all of these situations it is up to the leader to ensure that they manage the prevailing circumstances well. The first step towards this direction is creating external partnerships with the community. It is very difficult for healthcare institutions to handle the extremities of this virus single-handedly. Besides, the pandemic fails to adhere to organizational, geographical, or demographic boundaries.
Trust
Engaging external stakeholders in this process strengthens trust among everyone involved, including non-industry entities, customer-patient groups, supply vendors and peer organizations. In such an environment, people will embrace the safety to ask questions, share differences of opinion, offer suggestions and raise concerns. On a higher level, health care practitioners will have the time to educate people about the gravity of the situation at hand and thus, coerce the convergence of efforts to defeat the virus. People who share similar goals have higher chances of attaining massive results. For instance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2020), the elderly represents the utmost risk population relative to the virus. Therefore, in a collaborative environment, the youths and their parents will articulate the necessary measures to ensure that they do not take the virus home to their elderly family members. Trust within these circles guarantees that every party has access to novel knowledge about the various facets of the pandemic. People converge their efforts to search for the solutions to the virus and also, they provide their volunteer efforts to the cause for instance, when there are personnel or food shortages for the less privileged.
Effective Communication and Teamwork
Another element that is very essential in the fight of this virus is the effective dissemination of information, coupled with an unrivaled attention to teamwork. As mentioned earlier, there are a couple of parties that are engaged in the quest to apprehend the spread of the virus. Their efficiency is predicated on timely, frequent as well as accurate delivery of problem-solving, communications that attenuate to mutual respect, shared knowledge and shared goals. In some circles, relational coordination is the term used to refer to these collective requirements (Siddique, Procter, & Gittell, 2019).
Curated information allows the healthcare organization to substantiate various metrics involved with the virus and allocate their resources effectively. For instance, they can use travel nurse, retired clinicians and shift worker roles with respect to different geographical staff shortages. Besides, such a situation marks a new inception for caregivers that have never worked in such circumstances before. In this case, relational coordination will help in the identification of boundary banners, tiered huddles, shared meetings and protocols as well as universal resolution strategies. People can contribute to the discourse and as mentioned earlier, they can air their opinions, suggestions, concerns, and questions. Eventually, there is an overall increase in quality and safety outcomes. Even better is that such a team acquires the strength that handle similar events in the future. They become more experienced relative to the elements of relational coordination.
Motivate, Inspire and Empower High Function Team
At the end of the day, even healthcare practitioners are human beings and thus, elicit ordinary humane reactions towards the current plight. In other words, they are frightened by its deadly nature and thus, have right to seek some sense of detachment from their work. In this regard, their well-being is fundamental and it is one that the leaders’ shoulders in its articulation. The physical and emotional status of the workforce is as important as it is the need to heal people. In essence, they cannot perform their work effectively if they these dimensions are under siege. Besides, they have witnessed their colleagues acquire or succumb to COVID-19 (Orecchio-Egresitz, 2020).
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