A Quality Healthcare Organization

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A Quality Healthcare Organization

A healthcare organization exists as a center that offers health services, for instance, surgical operations, diseases diagnosis as well as treatment plus patients’ recovery. Also, research, training and teaching assignments are some of the other services that can be performed. A good healthcare organization is, therefore, the one that upholds and maintains that these services are of high quality. Quality has developed to be a progressively major part of individuals’ lives as they are always searching for quality products and services. Therefore, this increased need for quality has led to some organizations and firms in the world to regard quality as an indispensable element of any provision besides the production process. Quality in an organization exists as a strategic differentiator implement aimed at sustaining competitive benefit (Gilligan & Lowe, 2018). The method of cultivating quality by improving the structures and processes typically results to waste reduction, rework plus delays, advanced market share, lower costs and a good image of the organization. Also, there is a production level and profit improvement. Thus, it very imperative to outline, measure and also progress the quality of the healthcare services.

Quality in healthcare develops as a result of excellent cooperation amongst the patient together with the healthcare workers in a conducive and supportive environment. There are some factors which usually tends to affect the quality of the healthcare service. They include personal factors between the healthcare service providers, for example, a professional doctor or a nurse and the patient. However, there exist several ways by which the healthcare quality can be improved. Some of these ways include; having a visionary and effective leadership starting from top administration going downwards, appropriate planning, obtainability of resources and operative controlling of the available resources (Perera & Peiró 2012, p.752). Moreover, there are employees and the processes and lastly cooperation and collaboration among the healthcare service providers.

However, the quality of healthcare service tends to be somehow challenging to define and measure compared to some other sector. Distinctive healthcare industry features, for instance, intangibility, and simultaneity and also heterogeneity makes it problematic to identify and measure quality. This is because the healthcare service exists as an intangible product and thus it cannot be physically viewed, touched, measured or even felt like the manufactured goods. The quality of healthcare service typically depends on the service process as well as client and service provider interactions. There are also some quality healthcare aspects like consistency, accuracy, and timeliness that are tough to measure beyond an appropriate valuation especially by the customer. Subsequently, it is habitually difficult to reproduce consistent healthcare services. The reason is that these services can differ between the customers, producers, places and the activities taking place in the healthcare setting. This heterogeneity happens typically due to the different professionals, for example, the nurses and physicians delivering the amenities to the patients with diverse variable need (Nelson & Staggers, 2016). For an effective healthcare organization, the required attributes can be grouped into five distinct categories: competence, empathy, environment, efficacy, and effectiveness.

Quality healthcare comprises characteristics like accessibility, availability, acceptability competency, reliability, equity comprehensiveness among others. When there exists any effort to define, measure and also to improve healthcare quality, the different healthcare stakeholders’ perceptions, priorities, and desires have to be considered. Therefore, this depicts that quality matters a lot in the healthcare organization.

The healthcare organization must make some continual adjustments towards maintaining optimum functionality. Thus to define the areas in which these adjustments are required, some methods can be applied. One effective way that has portrayed to be effective in the healthcare setting is SWOT analysis. The technique is also applicable in other organizations. SWOT analysis consents the assessment of the healthcare organization from an unbiased perspective through a detailed discussion of the healthcare organization’s strength’s, flaws, threats and also the opportunities. SWOT analysis involves many steps, especially in the healthcare setting. The first step encompasses the compilation and valuation of crucial data, and this might include the society’s health status, the current state of medical technology or the healthcare sources funding. After composing and analyzing the suitable data, the competences of the organization are assessed.

The second step involves organizing the collected data into some four categories; strengths, weaknesses, threats and also opportunities. The internal factors of the healthcare organization are strengths and weaknesses while the threats and the opportunities are typically regarded as the external factors. The SWOT analysis third step in the healthcare organization entails creating a SWOT matrix for each business preference that is put under consideration. The fourth and the last step comprises of incorporating the derived analysis into the policymaking process. This is quite significant as it controls which preference will best suit the complete strategic blueprint of the healthcare organization. The factors that have contributed towards an exceptional healthcare performance are the strengths (Gretzky, 2010). These factors include well-trained medical personnel, state-of-the-art equipment, healthcare informatics investments, and high medical services. The factors that typically affect the healthcare quality or tend to increase the healthcare costs are termed as weaknesses. Examples of the weaknesses include outdated healthcare amenities, poor management and training, inadequate financial resources and inappropriate use of the healthcare informatics.

In the healthcare organizations, the obtainable new business initiatives are regarded as opportunities. Some of these opportunities include increased funding for better healthcare services provision, establishments of new healthcare programs and partnerships with diverse healthcare organizations. The threats are observed as the factors could affect negatively, the running of the healthcare organization. Some of the threats examples include political and economic insecurity and amplified demand for costly medical technology. Therefore while conducting a healthcare SWOT analysis, it is always noble to be realistic, avoid complexity, analyze the plans rationally and attain change.

Most of the data collected in the healthcare organization are in the raw format, and thus there is a great need for the data to be summarized, structured, and it also needs to be analyzed to develop some information from them conveniently. Also, each data set requires to be presented in a certain way depending on what way it will be used (Ginter et al., 2018). There are numerous ways in which this data can be presented for example as text, graphical form and in tabular form. It is essential always to plan the way in which to present the data before processing it.

When planning a healthcare project, it is vital to always start on the right foot as it can lead to tangible impact going down the line. The healthcare organization leaders, for example, the CEO ought to begin by recognizing well the sectors that the project might affect and thus guarantee that those sections are well and equally represented amongst the crucial stakeholders. Therefore, the organizations must certify that the project team possesses the accurate resources to act as a liaison amid the project team associates, the stakeholders, and the end users. Also, proper training of the workforce in the organization which is among the strategies of improving quality is encouraged. The following are the groups to consider when identifying stakeholders for effective running of the organization’s project; financial stakeholders, medical leaders, the end users (clinicians), the patients, vendors an also the billing plus audit functions (Gilligan & Lowe, 2018). Therefore as a leader, to ensure that there are smoothing and effective running in the healthcare organization the project team must refer, involve and partner with these groups. This is significant as it will help to solve the challenges that might arise in the organization. Also, it will assist in avoiding workflow disruptions and the budgetary concerns in the healthcare organization will be addressed.

References

Gilligan, C., & Lowe, R. (2018). Marketing and Healthcare Organizations. CRC Press.

Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care organizations. John Wiley & Sons.

Gretzky, W. (2010). Strategic planning and SWOT analysis. JP Harrison, Essentials of Strategic Planning in Health Care, 97.

Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2016). Health Informatics-E-Book: An Interprofessional Approach. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Perera, F. D. P. R., & Peiró, M. (2012). Strategic planning in healthcare organizations. Revista Española de Cardiología (English Edition), 65(8), 749-754.