Services & Practice Management Essay

Kennestone Welstar Hospital is the health care organization located in Georgia. The health care organization focuses on the delivery of health care services of the high quality and specializes on surgeries and treatment of various traumas. At the moment, Kennestone Welstar Hospital needs considerable changes to address existing challenges and issues, such as the need to develop the teamwork, training and coaching of the staff and improvement of the work of health care professionals. Therefore, Kennestone Welstar Hospital focuses on the enhancement of professional skills of employees working in the health care organization to improve the quality of health care services delivered to patients and to become the leader in the industry.Services & Practice Management Essay

The market sector Kennestone Welstar Hospital controls is the mass market, although the company also specializes on niche services. To put it more precisely, the company has level II trauma center and, what is more important, the hospital has the cyberknife radiosurgery system that is the only system of such type in Georgia. In this regard, it is possible to define the target market of the company rather as specialized than general, mass market. Kennestone Welstar Hospital is renowned for surgeries and effective treatment of various traumas.

The population health approach to health care is quite different from the curative approach. The population health approach to health care involves the focus on the target population, which the health care organization delivers services to. Instead, the curative approach focuses on the treatment and full recovery of patients rather than on the delivery of health care services to the target population. In other words, the population health approach focuses on the population and delivery of required health care services on the ground of needs of the target population. In this regard, the curative approach is more patient-centered because it focuses on the recovery of each particular patient, rather than on the delivery of the same services to the target population on the ground of the common approach to all patients in terms of the population health approach. The population health approach is more generalized and oriented on the large population and the public health rather than on the individual patient and the full recovery of each patient.Services & Practice Management Essay

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The use of either the population health approach or the curative approach affects the service delivery and management in Kennestone Welstar Hospital. The population health approach implies the use of the generalized approach to the target population, whereas the curative approach involves personalized approach to the treatment of every patient (Miller, 2000). As a result, the population health approach is effective, when the health care organization aims at the enhancement of the public health in the target area or attempts to improve the health care services among the particular population or social group.

At the moment, Kennestone Welstar Hospital has to deal with such common health care leadership issues as the organizational climate, teamwork, coaching, and training of employees. The organizational climate has a considerable impact on the organizational performance and interaction between professionals working in Kennestone Welstar Hospital and between health care professionals and clients. In actuality, Kennestone Welstar Hospital experiences certain problems with the organizational climate because the hospital expands its operations and needs more health care professionals to hire (Solovy, 1995). On the other hand, the hospital attempts to save costs and uses the nursing staff job cuts to balance the increased costs spent on the growth of the organization and reduction of costs by means of cutting jobs of the nursing staff.

Furthermore, the teamwork is very important for the successful organizational performance because professionals working in Kennestone Welstar Hospital have to collaborate closely that implies that they have to work as a team (Ghodeswar & Vaidyanathan, 2007). Teamwork is the distinct feature of the work of professionals in the health care organization. The interaction between health care professionals is essential for the delivery of effective health care services to patients and their successful recovery. In actuality, Kennestone Welstar Hospital attempts to develop the teamwork, but to enhance the teamwork and its effectiveness, employees working in the organization need more training.Services & Practice Management Essay

However, the training of employees raises another leadership problem as coaching and effective training. The health care organization employs qualified coaches to increase the effectiveness of training but the training of ll professionals by coaches only requires too much time from the company. In such a situation, the company needs to enhance the training process to increase the effectiveness of coaches. In this regard, the organization may consider the possibility of knowledge sharing within the organization which involves the training of employees in the course of their work, when employees, who have had training and who have been trained by coaches, help their colleagues to develop their professional skills and abilities.

These issues have a considerable impact on stakeholders of Kennestone Welstar Hospital. The quality of health care services delivered to patients depends on the qualification of employees working in the health care organization. Employees can improve their professional skills and qualification through training. This is why efforts of Kennestone Welstar Hospital to train employees and employ professional coaches may contribute to the improvement of the quality of health care services and enhancement of professional skills of employees working in the organization. In this regard, coaching and training has a positive impact on the organizational performance and delivery of health care services of the high quality to patients.Services & Practice Management Essay

Furthermore, the organizational climate has a considerable impact on employees working in the company.

The teamwork affects both health care professionals working in Kennestone Welstar Hospital and patients because the teamwork affects the quality of health care services delivered to patients. At the same time, the teamwork also affects health care professionals because they improve their interaction and learn to work effectively, if they work as a team.

In addition, Kennestone Welstar Hospital confronts some ethical and legal issues. In this regard, the protection of patients’ privacy is one of the primary concerns which affects both ethical and legal field. The privacy of patients is protected by existing legal norms and the US Constitution. However, patients are still vulnerable to the risk of information breaches, if health care professionals are negligent or fail to protect the privacy of their clients. The introduction of electronic health records aggravates the problem because the risk of information breaches occur and the private information of patients may be uncovered to the third party.

Furthermore, Kennestone Welstar Hospital confronts the problem of the effective collaboration between employees and the work of health care professionals with clients, who have a different cultural background. The cultural diversity is a serious challenge for the health care organization because cultural differences may lead to the offensive or inappropriate behavior from the part of health care professionals or patients. Kennestone Welstar Hospital employs culturally diverse personnel and provides services for the culturally diverse population. This is why health care professionals working in the health care organization should be able to work in the culturally diverse environment and provide health care services effectively to patients, regardless of their cultural background.

In such a situation, it is possible to make several suggestions to minimize negative outcomes and maximize the positive outcomes of leadership intervention in areas such as staffing, financing, competition, regulations, and public image. First, the organization should introduce advanced information technologies and optimize the use of electronic health records to increase the speed of information processing and to deliver health care services more effectively (Scott, 2001). If health care professionals are capable to process information fast and receive the full information about their patient, they can deliver effective health care services and treat the patient successfully. Second, Kennestone Welstar Hospital should introduce knowledge sharing management to facilitate the training process. Knowledge sharing implies that employees, who have had training, may share their knowledge, skills and experience with their colleagues. As a result, they can learn and improve their professional skills through sharing their experience with each other. Finally, Kennestone Welstar Hospital can focus on the patient-centered approach that would help the organization to increase the effectiveness of health care services and optimize costs of health care services. The higher efficiency of health care services means lower costs the health care organization and patients have to spend on the treatment of patients.Services & Practice Management Essay

Thus, Kennestone Welstar Hospital is the health care organization that needs improvements to enhance the organizational performance and to deliver health care services to patients effectively. At the moment, Kennestone Welstar Hospital focuses on the development of teamwork and training of the personnel to improve their performance. On the other hand, the health care organization attempts to save costs through the reduction of the nursing staff. Such strategy is ineffective. Instead, Kennestone Welstar Hospital should focus on the optimization of its costs through the introduction of advanced information technologies and electronic health records to enhance the information processing and transmission and to improve the quality of health care services delivered to patients. R

References:

Ghodeswar, B. M. & Vaidyanathan, J. (2007). Organisational Adoption of Medical Technology in Health Sector. Journal of Services Research. 7(2), 57

Miller, N. (2000). Seeking accountability. Nursing Economics.

Scott, G. (2001). Accountability for service excellence. Journal of Healthcare Management; Chicago; May/Jun 2001.

Solovy, A. (1995). Predicting the unpredictable. Hospitals & Health Networks; Chicago: Routledge.Services & Practice Management Essay