MASTERS CAPSTONE FM010 APA INTEXT CITATION

12

SWOT Analysis of Sinai Hospital

Olufunmilayo Adeleke

Walden University

SWOT ANALYSIS

Strengths · High performance in heart bypass surgery, heart failure, and hip replacements. · Support of the Jewish community · Safety of care and use of medical imaging is above the national average	Weaknesses · High Patient Acuity · Short Staffed · Poor Management
Opportunities · Lack of dominant competition · Support of Jewish Community and philanthropist · Shortage of healthcare services in the area	Threats · Loss of key staff or associates · Development of new technology by competitors

INTENDED MARKET AND STRENGTHS

Sinai Hospital was founded in 1866 as a Hebrew Asylum and Hospital. It is a Jewish sponsored nonprofit/ acute care hospital that provides care for all people. It is a healthcare organization that seeks to provide highly personalized and professional health care for all people. Its mission is to provide quality patient care, teaching, and research for the betterment of healthcare. It is an average ranking hospital in the Baltimore Maryland area that is well known for its high performance in heart bypass surgery, heart failure, and hip replacements. These procedures attract Baltimore’s older population to this hospital and become the hospital most remarkable areas of care and service. Another important finding is that the safety of care and efficient use of medical imaging at Sinai hospital is above the national average (Medicare.gov, 2018). The outpatient imaging efficiency measure used by Medicare for Sinai hospital focuses on the availability of the following goals at a given hospital; protecting patient’s safety while being exposed to radiation and other risks, avoiding unnecessary testings for patients and ensuring proper screening tests like mammograms are done to ensure a problem is not passed over (lifebridge.com, 2018).

Sinai hospital is also a teaching hospital that consists of 130 highly trained physicians in the ten departments that specialize in more than 20 different division. Sinai is also accredited by six important healthcare accreditation including radiology, pathology, and surgery. It is one of the hospitals affiliated with LifeBridge health and gets funding directly from philanthropists who offer charitable fits to help fund facility expansion, new technology, patient care, and programs to serve the Baltimore community better. Since it is a Jew founded the hospital, it can be argued that the concept of Tzedakah amongst the Jews allows the hospital to be a recipient of charity as it is a form of social justice which the Jews believe that the donor benefits more from giving than the actual recipient (Degroot, n.d). Overall Sinai outshines its other counterparts because of its ranked medical services and high performance in heart and hip surgeries (lifebridge.com, 2018).

WEAKNESSES

While Sinai hospital possesses great surgically skilled physicians, it lacks skillful management. I interviewed two former employees who shared their experience with upper management in Sinai hospital. Gbemi Moliki, a registered nurse, shared that Sinai’s lack of proper management sends many nurses and physicians out of the door within months. (Moliki, 2018). Online job recruiting sites also have reviews from different health workers who complain that management in almost every department was not a pleasant experience and that managers showed lack of trust in their employees (Glassdoor.org, 2016). This poor management system causes a decrease in the number of staffs, which often causes current staff to be overworked.

Due to the poor management system in the hospital, retention of staff has become an issue. Thousands of reviews from previous and current staff show that staff leaves after a few months of being hired (Glassdoor.org, 2016). Patient acuity is also an issue at this hospital. With high patient acuity and low staffing issues, current staff has to deal with more than they bargained and or are compensated for. Since Sinai is a nonprofit hospital, its profits cannot be retained which often leaves managers fewer incentives to manage its staff to maximize profit (Bishow & Monaco, 2016).

OPPORTUNITIES

An excellent opportunity for Sinai is its location and lack of dominant competitors. Sinai’s location allows it to provide health care services to a large population in the Baltimore area. This eliminates the Sinai provides healthcare services to a large geographic area. The increased shortage of healthcare facilities and services in the area allows for a larger number of patients and clients to seek healthcare service from Sinai hospital. With the support of philanthropist donors and the Jewish community, like other nonprofit hospitals, Sinai can pay staffs accordingly (Bishow & Monaco, 2016).

THREATS Two of Sinai’s major threats relate to their weaknesses: Loss of key staff or associates due to poor management and the development of new technology by competitors.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Investing in Newer Technological Equipments

Technology has become the driving force behind significant improvements in the healthcare field. To address Sinai Hospital’s weaknesses and threats, one has to draw inspiration from the hospitals current strengths while also incorporating newer strategies to strengthen the hospital's performance on both the patient and administrative area. Two areas of recommendations would be to invest in new technology and training center to further expand not only their impressive imaging department but also other departments that might need an improvement in their technological equipment. In the healthcare sector, technology is progressively playing a critical role in nearly almost all organizational processes from registration of patients to data monitoring starting from laboratory tests to self-care tools. Tools such as smartphones and tablets now replace conventional monitoring and record tools, and patients have an option consulting with their physicians and doctors at the comfort of their homes. Health Information Technology opens up many more opportunities for health research and exploration, which allows for more effective and efficient care (Vest & Gamm, 2010).

Popular technologies such as EHR, telehealth, smartphones and some applications have overall helped to increase the accessibility of treatments to patients. By incorporating these popular technologies into the hospital, Sinia will be able to provide improved care and efficiency and also help to improve classification of diseases and provides a clearer picture to disease prevention and control to their patients. A good example is the World Health Organization: this organization has been able to classify old and illnesses, find their causes and symptoms and compile all of the information gathered into an enormous database that comprehends more than 14,000 databases. This database allows medical researchers and professionals to track and utilize these data in controlling diseases and educating the public about health issues and ways to control them for a better outcome. Doctors have reported that there are great benefits from using the total system of electronic medical records as patients even comment that they enjoy the fact that software has created a greater degree of transparency in the health care system and made their visits much smoother (Vest & Gamm, 2010).

Phreesia technology is another technological gadget that many hospitals in the DMV area have incorporated into their daily usage. Phreesia is designed for healthcare centers and patients the headache of using check-in forms. Phreesia gives the patients an option to use a PhreesiaPad or Arrivals station to sign in. This syncs the information to the physical and the rest of the healthcare team that might need this information to draw up blood work or to creates referrals for the patient. The phreesia team also participated in maintaining hardware across the hospital so that there is less need for the IT team to do troubleshooting and updating software (Phreesia.com, nd). The fact that nurses and doctors habitually using hand-held computers to record vital real-time patient data and are also able to share it with other specialists and within their updated medical history is an outstanding illustration of one of the technological benefits. Being able to accrue lab results, records of vital signs and other essential patient data into a central system has transformed the level of care and effectiveness a patient can expect to receive when they go to the hospital or a healthcare facility (healthinformatics.uic.edu, 2018).

Training Current Managers

To employ a world-class workforce, Sinai must be competitive with another hospital for the best employer. A few strategies can help Sinai’s upper management staff become better and also help to retain current staff members. To improve the upper management staff, some re-budgeting must be done to allocate funds for training. New training classes should be set up to assist the managers in attaining skills that will be vital to being a great manager. It will also be helpful to review current employees under different management and departments in the hospital to discuss their complaints and feedback. Once the problem with the staff is identified, training can be tailored to each department.

Offer Incentives To New Hires And Current Employees

One of the most effect recruitment methods is word of mouth. A survey conducted by LinkedIn in 2016 confirms that employee referrals are an effective source of recruitment (Bogatova, 2017). A great way to ensure that both employer and employee are benefiting from new recruitment is to incentivization. By allocating more funds to recruitment and retention, the company will be able to hire and retain more staff members. A retention strategy would be to allow the newly trained hiring manager to request additional percentage of up to twenty-five percent of the annual pay rate to a newly hired employee or a re-hired employee. While newer employees benefit from this recruitment strategy, older employees should be compensated up to 25% of their annual pay when they reach a certain number of referrals per month. Not only does this allow them to earn more money, but it might help cut cost on advertising for new employees and it motivates current employees to recruit newer staff.

Job Sharing would also benefit Sinai’s hospital. Staff complaining about long work hours and high patient acuity will benefit if job sharing strategies are utilized at Sinai. Job Sharing allows two employees to coordinate their schedules and assignments so they are able to balance both work and family responsibilities (Bogatova, 2017).

CONCLUSION

Sinai is a truly prestigious hospital that has provided for its staff and patients alike. While Sinai provides quality healthcare to Baltimore and its surrounding areas, its poor management skills, loss of current employees and its competitions use of newer technology is affecting Sinai’s overall performance. However, by implementing newer technology, newer training classes for upper and lower management and utilizing retention strategies, this hospital will have the opportunity to be one of the best hospitals in the Baltimore metropolitan areas.

REFERENCE

Bogatova, M. (2017, February). IMPROVING RECRUITMENT, SELECTION AND RETENTION OF EMPLOYEES. Retrieved from https://www.theseus.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/123598/Mariia_Bogatova_Thesis.pdf?seq uence=1

Health Information Technology. (2018, March 8). What is HIE? Retrieved from Health Information Technology: https://www.healthit.gov/topic/health-it-and-health-information-exchange-basics/what-hie

Hospital Compare Quality of Care Profile Page. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/profile.html#profTab=1&ID=210012&state= MD&lat=0&lng=0&name=Sinai&Distn=0.0

John L. Bishow and Kristen A. Monaco, "Nonprofit pay and benefits: estimates from the national Compensation Survey," Monthly Labor Review, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, January 2016, https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2016.4.

LifeBridge Health - The Future of Health Care is Here. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.lifebridgehealth.org/Main/Home.aspx?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhN-k pgo263gIVjgOGCh3IYg8yEAAYASAAEgLtU_D_BwE

National Hospital Rankings Chart. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://healthinsight.org/rankings/hospitals/hospital-rankings?s=MD

Paaske, S., Bauer, A., Moser, T., & Seckman, C. (2017, July 12). The Benefits and Barriers to RFID Technology in Healthcare. Retrieved from Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS): https://www.himss.org/library/benefits-and-barriers-rfid-technology-healthcare

Palabindala, V., Pamarthy, A., & Jonnalagadda, N. R. (2016, October 26). Adoption of electronic health records and barriers. Retrieved from NCBI: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5089148/

Schilling, B. (2018, October 19). The Federal Government Has Put Billions into Promoting Electronic Health Record Use: How Is It Going? Retrieved from The Commonwealth Fund: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-article/federal government-has-put-billions-promoting-electronic- health?redirect_source=/publications/newsletter/federal-government-has-put-billions- promoting-electronic-health-record-use Surgery, H. B. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals/area/md/sinai-l hospital-of-baltimore-6320280/heart-bypass-surgery SWOT ANALYSIS Strategic Planning Session. (2008, October 21). Retrieved from http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/opi/qi/docs/meeker_leadershipteam_swot.pdf

Vest, J. R., & Gamm, L. D. (2010). Health information exchange: persistent challenges and new

strategies. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 17(3), 288-294.