Week 7 Case Study 2

Case Study 1: Are Our Customer Liaisons Helping or Hurting?

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Case Study 1: Are Our Customer Liaisons Helping or Hurting?

Introduction

In any hospital setting, Patient Care Executives usually are charged with the responsibility of ensuring that patients receive high-quality healthcare. At Holy Cross hospital, this position is created to give the executives an opportunity of managing the patients and allow doctors to focus on treating the patients. This is intended to make the functions of the facility much smoother. Initially, a lot of work was being put on the physicians, leaving them with too little time to attend to the patients and offer the quality of care that is required.

Recently, however, physicians have been complaining that the Patient Care Executives do not perform their duties as expected. As earlier mentioned, the position was created in this facility to ensure that patients are well-taken care of and other management functions are also handled effectively. Generally, it was meant to ensure smooth management of the healthcare organization and provide a smooth system and relationship between the PCEs and the healthcare providers. As an administrator, it is essential to work closely with HR to ensure that qualified and competent candidates are hired in this position to avoid future concerns from the physicians. As a result, a regular evaluation is required to identify the factors that affect the functioning of Holy Cross Medical Center.

External Environmental Forces

Various external factors affect the operation of Holy Cross Medical Center. Some of the major external forces include competition and patient outcomes. It is important to note that like any hospital, the patient outcome reflects the image of the organization to the public and clients typically. It is an advantage that in recent years, patient satisfaction has improved. This must be maintained or even further enhanced. Patient outcome is one of the factors that affect the organization because it plays a crucial role in determining patient retention and can improve the image of Holy Cross in public, consequently affecting its competitive advantage in the healthcare market. This means that if the PCEs and the healthcare providers are capable of working closely and collaboratively, they can improve patient outcomes and satisfaction within Holy Cross and bring success to the organization (Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2013).

Another external factor affecting the operations of the Holy Cross is competition. It is noted that the organization is surrounded by various healthcare organizations, both public and private, with relatively better facilities. Holy Cross is expected to compete with such organizations by offering better quality care. Competition, in this case, involves quality, convenience, costs, and superior products and services. At the same, competition with these organizations involves technology and innovation. Today, patients put a lot of focus on the cost and quality of healthcare provision and go to health centers that charges less for quality care Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2013). Benchmarking is a key aspect of competition. Holy Cross is expected to compete with industry leaders in the market. They must put strategies to improve their competitive advantage. The organization must compare the services they offer and the services offered by rivals in the market to determine where they need to improve. This would make Holy Cross provide patients with the best quality services and best treatment experience. If we can improve our facilities beyond what is used by the surrounding rivals and improve our services, we would be confident that our client will feel comfortable and receive greater care. As a result of this, we would improve the confidence levels among our physicians, PCE’s, and the staff.

Internal Environmental Factors

Looking at the internal environment of the Holy Cross, attention would be focused on effective communication and HR department. The HR department in the organization should focus on ensuring that there is enough staff in all the departments and that all the staff is well trained and competent enough to help drive the organization in the right direction. HR should ensure that employees their roles and the goals that they need to achieve. According to the Institute of Medicine (2003), many doctors and other health professionals do not get adequate training to offer quality healthcare services to patients. This is a relatively similar scenario at Holy Cross Medical Center. Few training and development programs are designed to help healthcare providers. Even though the rate of patient satisfaction has improved recently, the score could have been higher if the organization was focused on organizing training programs and growth opportunities for healthcare providers to improve their careers. Implementing career development programs will challenge employees to engage in continuous learning that would sharpen their competence and take their careers to a different level. Employees usually like a work environment that values the future of their careers, and as a result, the healthcare providers will work with a lot of motivation to achieve the goals of the organization (Longest, 2012). A motivated workforce would lead to increased productivity and enable the organization to achieve higher output levels. Without regular career growth and development opportunities, Holy Cross will begin falling below others in terms of rivalry based on the quality of services they provide. Additionally, the organization may lose its position in the community because it is the community image of the organization that drives its success.

Technology, information, and communication system are also some of the internal factors that affect the operations of the organization. Within the organization, internal communications play a key role in the success of the organization and the provision of quality healthcare services. Like any other healthcare sector, internal communication can be problematic if it is not structured correctly. In Holy Cross, communication starts from the management to all the staff involved in the management and healthcare provision. In healthcare settings, communication is one of the key tools for the provision of high-quality care service and maintenance of patient satisfaction. As earlier mentioned, the level of the patient outcome will decrease when there is poor communication within healthcare Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2013). The perception of patients regarding the quality of healthcare that they get largely lies in the quality of the interaction they have with the physicians and other staff within the medical center. In this case, effective communication between the PCEs and the physicians will improve their relationship and their level of coordination to enhance the quality of healthcare and patient outcomes. Effective internal communication will ensure PCEs, physicians, and other staff members have one goal, thus eliminating the possibility of confusion of roles and job alignments. Improved communication within the healthcare facility will improve the trust between the physicians and PCEs and perform their responsibilities to the highest standards (Longest, 2012). By taking advantage of these elements, we would be able to modify the daily functions of the healthcare organization to enable the facility to excel in all areas through the development of a competitive strategy to implement.

The Organization’s Ability to Develop a Competitive Strategy with the Use of Both Identified Internal and External Forces

It is evident that the internal and external factors indicated above have a significant impact on the success of the Holy Cross. It is essential for the administration to look into these aspects and develop a competitive strategy to help improve the relationship between PCEs and physicians. This would help improve how the organization is managed, functions, and competes in the market (Health Research and Educational Trust, 2012).

Employee growth and development programs for the staff would refine the reputation of the Medical Center and improve the relationship between the PCEs and physicians and patient satisfaction. Because of competition and patient outcome, Holy Cross will be forced to develop strategies that would improve the quality of healthcare and patient satisfaction and also reduce the cost of health provision. The strategy that the organization will develop will be aimed at bettering services and improving the flow of operations. At the same time, it is important to note that the career growth and development program for employees would create a motivated workplace environment (Ledlow & Coppola, 2014). Generally, analyzing the internal and external environmental factors of the organization helps Holy Cross to determine its strengths and weaknesses and design strategies aimed at improving the noted weaknesses (Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2013).

One Strategy Involving the PCE’s

One of the strategies that would involve the PCEs and maintenance of the strategic plan in the organization is to mobilize the HR to organize training and development programs for all the PCEs at different departments. One of the possible reasons for the poor relationship between the PCEs and the physicians is likely due to the lack of properly defined roles. Therefore, such training by the HR department will ensure that the PCEs understand their roles and responsibilities to avoid any likely confusion. With such training, HR would be able to evaluate the PCEs to determine their level of competence and qualification. Clearly defining and explaining the roles of the PCEs and the physicians would improve the relationship between the two groups. In any case, they are not fully qualified for the positions they hold or motivated enough to continue serving in such positions, then they will need to be replaced with a more competent individual who must be trained to know their responsibilities and what is expected from them.

At the training facilities, we would also be able to collect the views of the physicians to understand their concerns and ensure that they are included in the training sessions. Through this, the physicians will feel confident that their opinions are being taken into consideration, and the organization takes their concerns seriously. This means their position and role within the organization are critical.

Conclusion

Holy Cross is one of the best organizations in the community it is based. However, considering the factors of competition and benchmarking, the organization must continue making improvements in order to improve their competitive advantage in the market. Based on the internal and external environmental factors, the organization will need to create strategies to improve its services to enhance its competitive advantage. Considering the high rate of physician turnover, we will need to develop strategies to help build a good relationship between the PCEs and the physicians to enhance the quality of healthcare.

References

Ginter, P, Duncan, W., & Swayne, E. (2013). Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations (7th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Health Research & Educational Trust. (2012). A guide to strategic cost transformation in hospitals and health systems. Retrieved from http://www.hpoe.org/strategic-cost-transformation

Institute of Medicine. (2003). Health professions education: A bridge to quality. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press

Ledlow, G. & Coppola, M. (2014). Leadership for health professionals: Theory, skills, and application (2nd Ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning, LLC.

Longest Jr., B. (2012). Management challenges at the intersection of public policy environments and strategic decision making in public hospitals. Journal of Health & Human Services Administration, 35(3), 207-230.