Leadership Conducting a thorough evaluation using the seven categories should provide useful information about North Macomb Medical Associates overall patient satisfaction. The employees should view the assessment as a learning experience. The first area that will be reviewed facilities leadership. This criteria evaluates how the senior leaders, which in the case of North Macomb Medical Assistants would be the owner, the four other physicians, and the office manager. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) (2015), “senior leaders play a central role in setting values and directions, communicating, creating and balancing value for all stakeholders, and creating an organizational focus on action, including transformational change in the organization’s structure and culture, when needed” (p. 3). Overall, the owner/head physician is responsible for the staff that he employees however, each physician is responsible for hiring his or her own medical assistant. In order for the leaders to guide the employees in the right direction, there needs to be a clear and precise mission statement that is acknowledged by all. It is difficult to lead a group of employees without truly knowing what the mission is. In our facility, our main mission is to ensure that all patients are treated with respect and provided the care that he or she expects within reason. Leaders must ensure that the environment that employees are working in does not inhibit the
The superior act of living an effective life lies in the pursuit of excellent vision, to move from where we are to where we ought to be, either as a person or as an organization. A health care leader must motivate the organizational team, find how to work with the associates to effectively dedicate their time and energy to achieve the identified goals and objectives through the established vision. The team members need to buy into the vision, where they are currently doing what the leader envisions, the leader must encourage them, keep them on track and set standards for the team by setting goals and objective, flowing from the vision. This will enable the leader to move the health care organization to the expected performance level within the set time period. The leader must ensure that individual responsibilities of the associates are identified, motivated and resources provided to achieve the identified goals. To pursue the vision, I will lead the development of the health care organization’s strategic alignment of clear goals and objectives, to preserve the core mission and encourage progress toward the envisioned future state. Also, I will encourage and provide the direction for the organization without hindering the development of the goals that we expect to accomplish.
There are numerous entities involved in making a healthcare facility run smoothly. The hospital administrator is responsible for overseeing services, programs, facilities, staff concerns, balancing budgets, and setting policies (Healthcare Management, 2016). The hospital board makes sure that the administrator is qualified and operating in the best interests of the hospital. Just to name a few of the behind the scenes hospital employees, there are those taking care of billing/finances, training/education, food services, security, registrars and those hired for caring for patients which include physicians and nurses, the numerous specialty services such as anesthesiologists, cardiologists, neurologists, and psychiatrists. Of
The secondary issues are lack of clearly defined roles. The physicians’ primary role is to provide patient care; however, the physicians are performing administrative duties such as scheduling clinic coverage and maintaining adequate medical supplies in examination rooms. Such task should be assigned to administrative assistants. Undefined employee roles create problems because some tasks remain unfinished.
In order for the health service to achieve the delivery of high quality, safe, effective care; successful leadership will be required at multidisciplinary level throughout the organisation (Health Service Executive 2009). Research on leadership has revealed an optimistic affiliation with improved patient safety results, salubrious work environment (Shirley 2009), job fulfilment (Sellgren et al. 2007), reduced staff resignation rate,
Patient satisfaction is a driving force in today’s health care system. Incorporating the patient in their care will help with the patients healing process as well as encouraging the patient to be more compliant with their prescribed care. Bedside reporting is a practice that some organizations have incorporated in their standards of care. The patients care does not stop when the nurse’s shift ends. Therefore, it is important for the patient’s information to be conveyed accurately to the oncoming nurse. Conducting shift reports at the bedside allows the oncoming nurse to both visualize and interact with the patient much sooner than if the nurse had received report in another manner. Furthermore, bedside reporting allows the patient to interact with both nurses; and allows them to see that their care is being properly managed. This type of reporting also allows the oncoming nurse to ask questions, as other methods of shift reporting limits the oncoming nurse from interacting and asking questions of the off going nurse. Patient satisfaction as well as accurate transfer of information and patient safety is a crucial part in providing quality patient care.
According to Makary (2013), in 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services finalized details of a new reimbursement method that adjusts payments based on patient satisfaction scores-a measure also being adopted by private insurers. Because of this, patient satisfaction is becoming a front-and-center issue in the health care industry.
Surveys are often used to evaluate systems within health care entities. Such objective data is often used by leadership within an organization to evaluate the effectiveness of organizational systems and processes. Suppose there was a recent decline in patient satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and culture of safety surveys. As an innovative healthcare leader, how would you approach addressing this recent data?
The leadership and management dynamics of a physician run organization are complex and challenging. The biggest challenge is managing the differing opinions and perspectives of multiple physician owners. Up until recently, I have viewed my role with the physician owners as passive. My approach was to provide guidance with operational and strategic decision making and essentially let this group lead themselves. By shifting the style of my interactions with the physicians to a more active leadership role, I hope to improve the relationships and interactions within the physician group. These improvements will lead to a more positive organizational culture, more engaged employees and improved patient satisfaction. My vision is that by starting at the top of the organization any positive strides gained in improving the dynamics of the physician group, will have a trickle-down effect on the organization. Finally, championing this process will involve honing and fine tuning my own leadership skills.
This program has been an excellent way to build relationships among residents and hospitalists. I have also identified several weaknesses in my transformational leadership practice. The first weakness that I have struggled with is to find common ground to enlist my followers in the change process. The best example of this challenge is convincing all my hospitalists that sustained increased patient volumes is necessary to justify additional spending to the leadership of our company and hospital administration to increase our daily staffing. Under my hospitalist medical director leadership tenure, our average daily patient encounters have increased an average of 75%.
I am going to play devils advocate a bit here in regard to health care centers using patient satisfaction survey measures to improve the quality of care they provide to patients. Of course nurse and patient satisfaction surveys play an important role in keeping health care providers accountable for the patient care they deliver and ensuring nursing staffing levels are adequate to guarantee patient safety in medical settings. However, having worked in the health care arena for fifteen years, there are times that patient satisfaction survey metrics can be detrimental to health care providers’ careers and the quality of patient care delivered. For instance, Robbins (2015) explains sometimes health care providers will go out of their way to give patients what
Leadership at health facilities has become one were governance has become more decentralized to increase accessibility (Poksinska, 2010). The head nurses and doctors at the facilities are now interacting with the junior professionals more than in the past. These leaders are now becoming more accessible to the junior nurses, who can now share the issues that affect them in the workplace and get the issues addressed immediately. The policy seems to be bringing the leadership of the facilities closer to the employees. Notably, this emerging issue is being pushed by management of various facilities. This increases the accessibility of management by entry level employees, and the benefit is that employees feel supported and part of a team. Apart from that, entry level providers can also get the confidence to improve and become better because they are assured that they have the support of their
Finally, through making a visible presence within the online marketing the health care organization will have presented their existence to many within their communities to allow them the knowledge of their facilities and services that are available. “Susan Eisen (2007) reports to the extent that patient satisfaction assessment efforts are reliable, valid and appropriately used, their results hold promise for improving particularly, interpersonal aspects of healthcare quality. After much concern about increasing impersonalization in the current healthcare system and pressure on providers to see more patients in less time, efforts to assess patient satisfaction should, at least, serve to raise the consciousness of healthcare providers, administrators
The length of stay of patients at the ER was noted a reflection of inadequacy of the referral system. A 4-hour target is acceptable in order to give a sound clinical decision, however, setting completion time targets might cause some inconvenience in the treatment procedure and downgrade the quality of service11. This holds true for most department, one was those in need of trauma services, most of the patients stayed longer for observation of untoward signs or were in need of suturing or further examination. In a study at Principe de Asturias University Hospital, Spain, the results suggested that the increase in the poor outcome of referrals and the rejection of referrals could be because the consulting doctor was too laxed or too strict when making interdepartmental referrals12. In a study at a Kanye community, doctors were rarely seen and it was trainees who dealt with the clients referred to most of the time13. A complete referral information could contribute in minimizing the prevailing deficiencies which would ultimately lead to efficient health care services.
It also created the feeling that she is out of touch with current issues and dynamics of bedside care. The lack of visible leadership caused frustration for the staff and lead to dissatisfaction and ethical erosion in the form of decreased loyalty. I am pleased to say that based on the results of our last several employee satisfaction surveys, and encouragement from her directors, this senior leader has recognized her disconnect with middle management and staff and has started to host meetings on the inpatient units where she will bring a meal and the staff can ask her questions. This was a courageous move for her and I was not certain how it would be received, however, I am pleased to say, the results have been positive. The staff is making an effort to attending their scheduled meeting and attendance has been good. Staff questions have been insightful and respectful. It has given staff the opportunity to see and hear from their senior leader, her vision and to understand her passion for patient care and the concern she has for staff, directly from her and for her to hear concerns and frustrations directly from staff. This simple effort to interact with staff on a more personal basis has significantly changed her reputation as a leader. She is dynamic and fully committed to her nursing staff and now the staff know it as well as her directors.
In the 21st century, the management in health care has become more vital within the health care industry. The patients in the community are relying on the Sunlight Hospital to make sure the services are rendered with prodigious quality. Marshall states, “Health care organizations have an immediate and direct impact on their patients’ quality of life” (Chron.com). Therefore, having a proactive management team can have an enormous impact on can take place within the Sunlight Hospital in order to remain successful.