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SWOT Analysis of Organizational Structure: Harborview Medical Center
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SWOT Analysis of Organizational Structure: Harborview Medical Center
Harborview Medical Center, operating under UW Medicine, is the only provider of Level 1 trauma care in the Washington State. The faculty has graduated and post-graduated from the associated medical universities and schools, and their efforts are directed towards coming up with a stronger, comprehensive network of trauma services across the state. It provides special care and offers emergency services to patients throughout Washington. A SWOT analysis, examination of this medical center’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, reveals that the organizational structure is complicated. Such a structure necessitates state-of-the-art communication facilities among staff and requires participatory leaders who are always poised to involve in the affairs of the hospital. Based on the issues identified during the survey and interviews, factors of weaknesses and threats, specific recommendations have been made to repair certain loopholes present in the current organizational structure.
Governance of the Institution
The hospital is governed by the Harborview Board of Trustees appointed by King County, as it is also owned by the same county (UW Medicine, 2018). The responsibility of management and regulatory actions is performed by the staff of the University of Washington (Bulger, Kastl, & Maier, 2017). A considerable number of faculty members, practicing doctors, paediatricians, trauma caretakers, nurses and service providers are the alumni of the same medical school.
Provision of Financial Statements
Since the hospital is managed under the University of Washington, the UW Medicine provides the financial reports to the Board of Trustees, Regents and other internal as well as external stakeholders. The same report provides information about compliance with federal laws as well as regulations (Washington State Auditor, 2017). These reports are provided in a meeting to the Board of Regents and they can be found online with open access for the board of trustees, employees and other stakeholders.
Function of the Institution
Harborview Medical Center performs a number of specific healthcare functions, enlisted as (UW Medicine, 2018):
1 Provision of healthcare to the most vulnerable people in King County,
2 Provision of care in case of emergencies and traumas for adults and children,
3 Education of future generation of doctors, nurses, surgeons, healthcare practitioners, paediatricians and trauma caretakers,
4 Coordination with other medical agencies in the state for continual development and improved healthcare service,
5 Service as a disaster control, prevention, and disaster management center under the domain of healthcare.
SWOT Analysis
A SWOT analysis is basically an integrated approach for strategic planning and development taking into account the strengths (qualities, features, competitive advantage over others and positive points), weaknesses (internal problems and issues), opportunities (for further growth, improvement and competitive advantage) and threats (possible and inherent risks and other external stakeholders).
Strengths
1 It is the only service provider for level 1 adult and pediatric emergencies.
2 It has an efficient burn center operative for regions, mainly of Montana, Idaho, Alaska and Washington.
3 It provides healthcare service to diverse groups of patients, on a priority basis: poor, uninsured, underinsured, victims of sexual assaults and domestic violence (Bulger, Kastl, & Maier, 2017).
4 Its medical college has a highly positive reputation nationwide (Bulger, Kastl, & Maier, 2017).
5 The Days cash on hand ratio of the hospital is 116.3, which is the second highest in the list of facilities (UW Medicine, 2018). This means that the company’s liquidity is commendable and can do without getting further payments for almost three months. The hospital’s debt to capitalization ratio is 0.0% which shows there is no risk considering the debts and interest payments of the hospital.
Weaknesses
1 The biggest weakness of this medical center is that there is a lack of technological advancement. This weakness may become high risk in future because research, development, improvement and innovation are integral to healthcare and in this era, these objectives can’t be achieved in the absence of technical facilities.
2 Though the medical center’s documents suggest that the heads value training and it is one of the key areas of focus, nowhere have they mentioned that they are going to conduct in-house training for the existing staff, nurses and trauma caretakers.
3 Because of the diversity of patients, language barriers and ethnic differences, it may become confusing, and then frustrating for nurses and other respondents to understand and analyze the required care elements (Ali and Watson, 2017). For example, at one point, the hospital has mentioned that it prioritizes the care of non-English speaking poor patients. The language and communication barrier prolongs the response time, resulting in a delay of providing the requir...