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Healthcare Management

Question 1

To compare a list of alternative strategies, a person should first of all perform a comparative analysis. There are two tools for this task: qualitative rating matrix and quantitative rating matrix (Chatfield Chapter 2, p. 15). Essentially, these instruments use probabilistic measures to rate the pros and cons of each alternative. After assessing the strengths and weaknesses of each strategy, it becomes possible to determine the alternative that is more feasible to apply. However, a purely quantitative approach is more elucidative and the main concern lies in determining viable probabilities that can be used to weigh various strategies. Also, when analyzing alternative strategies, the context of a healthcare setting is fundamental because it helps one forecast how various externalities can affect the performance of a particular strategy. For instance, when seeking to introduce a new technology in a hospital, project officials should at least test how tech-savvy people in the hospital are. In doing so, it will be possible to make realistic adjustments.

Question 2

The hierarchical organizational structure encourages ranking of group members in terms of authority, influence, or ability to make strategic decisions (Anderson and Brown 3). In the healthcare environment, this structure hinders coordination because its management system bestows a lot of power on few individuals who can exploit it to advance self-interests. Also, in steep hierarchies where organizational power is centralized in upper executive units, complacency usually sets in because the administrative groups do not have competitors. As a result, leaders might become non-committal to collaborating with others, especially junior workers. Also, in intra-group relationships, tension between members and their leaders can explode into conflicts that deter productive engagement or coordination. Contrastingly, in intergroup settings, distinct healthcare branches might become indifferent to one another. For instance, junior employees can lose the trust they have on their seniors if the latter exhibit any form of incompetence or ineffectiveness.

Question 3

According to Burns, Bradley, and Weiner (121), teams undergo five stages of development: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Normally, cohesion in these stages differs from one level to another. For example, during the forming stage, relationships between members are loose and there is little or no need for accountability. As a leader, I need to focus on these stages so that I can understand the specific challenges that affect each of them. In doing so, I can also determine how to make appropriate interventions to solve those challenges. For example, if I discover that members in a certain stage of team development are underperforming, as a manager I will probably study their size, diversity, and the contribution of each member to device an intervention program that is commensurate to stage.

Question 4

Managers can hold health professionals and other employees accountable and still encourage them to improve the quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare by promoting robust methods of communication, openness, trust building, and accessibility (Chatfield Chapter 4, p. 21). Most importantly, they should give prominence to idiosyncratic issues that affect individual employees so as to determine how to solve their problems and motivate them.

Question 5

The main stakeholders of a community hospital include managers, physicians, patients, regulators, suppliers, and special interest groups. Typically, all of them tend to promote provision of collaborative medical schemes that are effective and accessible to every person. On the other hand, stakeholders for a major teaching hospital include managers, physicians, teaching staff, subordinate staff, medical learners, regulators, patients, suppliers, and professional unions. Usually, their main goal is to ensure there is compliance to high professional standards. However, the stakeholders for a large for-profit hospital include managers, physicians, subordinate staff, patients, insurance farms, competitors, investment partners, professional unions and interest groups (Blair et al. 140). On their part, their main goal is to provide specialized and patient-centered healthcare to increase profitability.

Works Cited

Anderson, Cameron, and Courtney E. Brown. “The functions and dysfunctions of hierarchy.” Research in Organizational Behavior, 2010.

Blair, John D., et al. “Strategic management of stakeholder relationships.” Health Care Administration: Planning, Implementing, and Managing Organized Delivery Systems, Aspen Publishers, Gaithersburg, MD (1999).

Burns, Lawton, Elizabeth Bradley, and Bryan Weiner. Shortell and Kaluzny’s Healthcare Management: Organization Design and Behavior. Cengage Learning, 2011.

Chatfield, J. Seth. “Leadership and Management: A Framework for Action.” Chapter 2 of Healthcare Management; Organization, Design & Behavior. n.d.

Chatfield, J. Seth. “Leadership and Management: A Framework for Action.” Chapter 4 of Healthcare Management; Organization, Design & Behavior. n.d.