First Post
Decision Making can simply be defined as choosing between or among alternatives. It has two steps: identifying and evaluating alternatives, and choosing an alternative. Due to this reason, it is integral to and heavily intertwined within all the other managerial functions. Managers have to make decisions with almost every aspect of their work, regardless of whether it is within a work process, monitoring and controlling work, acquiring and assigning personnel, directing work activity, etc. By this, we can conclude that all managers are decision makers; however, the decisions they make vary in scope and nature, depending on the level of the manager. Senior managers are involved with policy and strategic decisions; middle/first level managers are involved with allocation and usage of resources that senior level managers provide to them. Managers have to decide about staffing numbers and their qualifications, pay, training, performance appraisal. Planning involves decision making when choosing whether senior management is formulating strategy or mid-level management is implementing programs. When it comes to organizing, decisions have to be made about procedures, process flows, designing work systems and making job assignments. When controlling, management compares individual output and organizational results with previously set expectations to understand whether improvement is needed or standards can be raised. This requires them to make decisions about what type of information needs to be collected and reported on, what monitoring systems should be used to compare outputs against expectations and standards. Managers will also have to decide which type of roles to adopt, informational roles to monitor, allocation and usage of resources, etc. These are all important for attaining organizational resources.
Information technology can assist and hamper the decision making process. Managers may find themselves in a precarious position when deciding whether to acquire technological advancements that help with the growth of their organization and increase output or usage of those resources for other areas that are in need. When it comes to technology, savings may not be seen right away – it may be short term or long term. However, management would need to have the foresight to make the right decision for the organization at that time. Additionally, the staff within any organization need to position themselves for change and cannot be resistant to it. Concurrently, management will be able to deliver quality health care services with the improvement of information technology within their organization. These improvements will not only help their customer base, but it will also increase fluidity, efficiency, accuracy and automation within their organizations.
Individual relationships and the organizational culture have an impact on motivation, satisfaction, and an organization’s ability to coordinate work. Individuals may find themselves in frictional positions with other associates that they are stuck with in their groups or organizational charts. This may be due to a difference in work ethic, ideologies or work product. It is important for associates to share the same vision, culture and values that are set by the organization. It would be ideal for the culture and values of an organization to have a work/life balance, diversity, etc. to be included and integrated within it. Associates need to be content at their work places to enhance the ability to do their work.
Resources Used:

* Longest, B. and Darr. K. (2014). Managing Health Services Organizations and Systems. Baltimore, MD. Health Professions Press.
Second Post

Planning
Organizing
Staffing
Decision making
These traits listed are just some of the important things a manager should possess when running a successful healthcare organization. I have been at my job for 12+ years and have witnessed a lot of things that should be corrected but still are not. One of the many examples is having the right amount of staff to handle the amount of patient traffic that your organization has. By having the proper ratio this will help things run more smoothly and efficiently. for example, the nurses/ma’s (myself included) have been extremely over worked because there is not enough of us and overtime we turn around someone is leaving because they can’t physically handle being “overloaded”. I do not blame them what so ever and in this case we have presented this issue to our manager and HR on several occasions but they say that more staff is not in the budget. While they say this can not be worked in because of budget, they are closely monitoring our patient numbers, dropped/unanswered calls, and patient satisfaction, but if we had the staff we would be able to answer more phones and see more patients which in turn keeps patients and physicians happy. My manager has recently sent another proposal to HR because they came at us again with our low numbers on calls answered and continue to ask us “why?”. Patient satisfaction is always key, and the start to that is having happy employees because their happiness carriers over when talking to the patients/physicians.