Strategic planning is vital with merging the 3 facilities into Gateway Healthcare
System. By evaluating each facility first to determine strengths and weaknesses,
also to observe what each staff member’s daily responsibilities and how they
present themselves is important to the success of the merge. After performing
the SWOT analysis and reviewing the current policies and procedures, we can
move forward with steps to take in order to introduce new policies and
procedures and correct the errors and “lazy” routines that some of the staff have
been used to. When creating a stakeholder team it is essential to list the goals and
how each team member would be able to contribute to the goals that had set in
integrating Gateway Heathcare System. There would need to be realistic steps
that it will take to retrain the staff and make sure that each facility is following
the new and improved policies and procedures as well as representing the
facility in a positive way. Merging these facilities is not an easy task as they were
all trained differently, they have formed clicks within the department, and most
of the staff do not have a degree or certificate in HIM and/or medical coding.
There will most likely be a reassessment of employee roles and responsibilities
to even out the needs of the department. After implementing all of these changes
the facilities will definitely need to be monitored and tweaked as needed for the
first year or so, to make sure that the merge is successful.
