Health Systems Issues and Management

Health Systems Issues and Management
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Health Systems Issues and Management
Introduction
In this paper, I assume that I have been hired as a consultant to a manager in a health care organization, and I will interview a few key executives and managers. The current organizational structures, work processes and types of patients that shape the delivery of health care services, as well as their leadership styles are comprehensively discussed. Ways in which the leader is accountable for attaining objectives are described. In addition, this paper includes the weaknesses and strengths of transparency and recommendations are made to the manager to improve the company on these areas. Moreover, an issue is identified and analyzed that is impacting the chosen healthcare system described by the healthcare leader. Lastly, this paper incorporates Quality and Safety Education in Nursing (QSEN).
Banner Health's organization structure and work processes
Organizational structure: In this paper, the assumption is held that I have been hired as a consultant at Banner Health; a large health care organization based in Phoenix, Arizona and operates in 7 states across the United States. An organizational structure is basically understood as the levels of management within a health organization. These levels facilitate effective management of the departments of the hospital. The organizational structure is helpful in understanding the chain of command of the hospital (Flight & Palmer, 2013). At Banner Health, the organizational structure is as follows: (i) Board of directors, then (ii) Hospital Administrators who provide administration services and include Department Heads, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Executive Assistants and Vice President. The administrators are business people running the hospital, and they oversee finance and budgeting, and formulate procedures and policies of the health organization. (iii) Next are Staff who offer Support, Diagnostic, Therapeutic and Informational Services. Support services include housekeeping and maintenance meaning maintaing clean and safe environment; and central supply staff who order and receive supplies. Diagnostic Services include medical imaging such as ultrasound, MRI and Radiology; medical laboratory; and emergency medicine. Therapeutic Services entail providing treatment to patients. It includes occupational therapy, physical therapy, pharmacy, respiratory therapy and medical psychology. Informational Services include human resources, health education, medical records and admissions, as well as billing and collection (Useem, 2001).
Work processes: To make sure that workers are as productive as possible, work processes should be specified and enabled by systems and tools. Work processes are understood as the imperative internal value creation processes (Flight & Palmer, 2013). At Banner Health, work processes involve most of the company's employees and produce stockholder, stakeholder and customer value. Work processes at this health organization include activities such as: (i) Care Management in which the company encourages its clinicians and doctors to imagine novel ways of offering patient care and enhancing the practice of medicine. It is of note that Care Management works to spot clinical enhancements, test them, and execute them across the company (Banner Health, 2014).
(ii) Care Transformation: this puts information of the patient at the fingertips of the caregiver through the use of an integrated electronic medical record that contains medical images, charting and notes of nurses and doctors, as well as laboratory results. (iii) Patient Safety: At Banner Health, patient safety committees work meticulously and the organization offers information to its hospital patients on how it can ensure their safety. (iv) Innovation: the company works to lead through innovation and has a number of technologies that help to constantly improve care of patients. These technologies include surgical robotics, Banner iCare, Simulation Education System and Intelligent OB program. All these work processes are intended to produce medical excellence (Banner Health, 2014).
Types of patients: there are various types of patients that shape the delivery of health care services at the health organization. This is evident from the medical services delivered by the company which include: pediatrics, Alzheimer's care, hospice care and home care, critical care, cancer care, orthopedics, women's health as well as rehabilitation. Leadership style: a style of leadership essentially refers to approach and manner of motivating people, executing plans and giving direction. As seen by staff members, it includes the whole pattern of implicit and explicit action of their leaders (Cherry & Jacob, 2010). At Banner Health, the leadership style is democratic or participative, in which the managers include one or more staff members in their process of decision-making. Nonetheless, the leader will maintain the ultimate decision making power. The business card or email address and contact that has to be submitted with paper is that of facility leader. It is noteworthy that the organization has hospitals in seven states across the United States and each hospital has its own facility leader (Banner Health, 2014).
The leader is accountable for achieving objectives in the following ways: The leader sets goals and assigns priorities to them. The leader also develops strategies and high-level plans for accomplishing those goals, assigns responsibilities and tasks to employees and self. The leader organizes a group effectively to attain particular defined objectives and goals. The leader also motivates the employees to commit to achieve the objectives (Pearson, 2009). The leader also informs the workers how achieving the objectives would benefit them personally, and how it would help the company move forward. Moreover, the leader makes use of her/his skills and knowledge in helping his/her team succeed and accomplish the goals and objectives. The leader works successfully, productively and in an effective manner with other people. The leader also holds herself and staff accountable, and communicates sensitively, appropriately, timely and effectively (Pearson, 2009). Banner Health has a key objective of delivering excellent patient care. Measuring performance helps the management in understanding how well the company is realizing this objective. Measuring performance improvement entails quantifying the objectives and goals. The information used to measure performance improvement is the information/data on what actually happened and is compared with what was intended or planned. Measures of what really happened are compared with objectives set by the company (Banner Health, 2014).
Extent the organization is designed effectively to attain high performance
Banner Health is highly designed to effectively attain high performance on dimensions of clinical quality, patient experience, value, as well as employee satisfaction. It is noteworthy that the vision of Banner Health is to be a countrywide leader renowned for innovation and clinical excellence, distinguished by the quality of its people, and preferred for a very coordinated patient experience. The mission of the company is to deliver outstanding patient care, and this is keeping the organization focused on what really matters, that is, its patients (Banner Health, 2014). At all Banner Health facilities, the professional care offered by the company's physician partners and workforce make a difference daily. Be it enhancing the health on an entire community or saving the life of a single person because of an organ transplant through the company's services and programs, Banner Health is focused on delivering exceptional patient care.
It is noteworthy that at Banner Health, the health organization takes all possible steps to make sure that patients get the safest and highest quality care possible. The organization uses both innovation and technology in supporting the efforts of its caregivers to deliver excellent patient care. Increasingly, many health organizations give information regarding the quality of care to assist patients in making decisions that are more informed (Institute of Medicine, 2001). Banner Health believes that patients need to have easy-to-understand and correct information in order to make the best healthcare decisions not only for themselves, but also for their families. In caring for a patient in the healthcare system, the role of a nurse practitioner is to focus on providing excellent patient care. In essence, nurse practitioners manage diabetes, hypertension and other chronic conditions; diagnose and treat common acute injuries and diseases; give immunizations; carry out physical exams; counsel patients regarding health ...