Health Organization Paper free essay sample

At Parker Memorial Hospital we strongly believe in carrying out our mission and values statements. According to Buchbinder and Shanks (2007), the mission of an organization is the enduring statement of purpose and identifies what the organization does, whom it serves and how it does it. And the value statement, To be the recognized healthcare provider and employer of choice, helps define the organization’s culture. We believe that Parker Memorial Hospital, the nations first hospital, has a responsibility to: Ensure access to superior quality integrated health care for our community and expand access for underserved populations within the community. Create a supportive team environment for patients, employees, and clinical staff. Foster learning and growth through comprehensive academic and educational relationships. Exhibit stewardship and creativity in the management of all available resources there are many issues facing health care organizations. The issues have affected health care in the country negatively. Quality of care has become a major issue in the country. This is because dying patients and other patients do not get the right care when seeking medical attention. The health care sector is made up of private and public sector according to the textbook (Niles, 2011 ). The public and private sector provide medical services to dying patients and other patients. Most people argue that the public sector does not provide quality services to patients. This is because of public hospitals relying on government funds to provide medical services. This has forced many people to seek medical services from private hospitals. After reviewing the U. S. department of census bureau, 49. 9 million people in 2010 were not able to afford medical services from the private hospitals (unknown, 2011). This is due to increase in medical costs and lack of insurance. Private hospitals charge high prices for medical services as they offer customized services. Many citizens do not have health insurance and this makes it hard to get health care services from the private hospitals. Researchers argue that private hospitals are profit oriented and they may not provide quality medical services to patients (Moss amp; Dobson, 2006). This affects the quality of care offered to the patients. Our intent is to analyze how quality of care is affected by organizational culture, structure, governance and social responsibility. Health care organizations, like other organizations, are affected by organizational culture and structure. The organizational culture and structure can affect the quality of care in the organizations negatively or positively. In addition, the quality of care is also affected by organizational governance and social responsibility. Organizational culture refers to the beliefs, values and attitudes of an organization (Buchbinder amp; Shanks, 2007). It is also defined as the collection of norms and values shared by employees in the organization. The values and beliefs shared by the employees control how they relate with each other and stakeholders who are outside the organization. Organizational culture is common in health care organizations (Moss amp; Dobson, 2006). The health care organizations have a set of beliefs, values and attitudes which employees share. Organizational culture affects organizational performance like organizational effectiveness. Poor organizational culture makes it difficult for health care organizations to work effectively as evidence by its definition. This in turn makes it difficult to provide quality care. Organizations having poor or weak culture affect the performance of the employees in the organization. Poor organizational culture leads to poor working conditions for all the employees in the organization. The poor organizational culture leads to stress and lower quality patient care. Doctors and nurses perform poorly in adverse working conditions. This leads to poor quality of care as evidence of performance on the job and patient satisfaction scores. This is according to a study carried out to determine how organizational culture affects doctor’s performance and quality of performance. Most health care organizations do not have strong organizational culture and this has influenced the performance of the employees. This has also affected leadership in the organization and increased conflicts in the organization (Moss amp; Dobson, 2006). The health care organizations have a set of beliefs, values and attitudes which employees share. Organizational culture affects organizational performance like organizational effectiveness. Poor organizational culture makes it difficult for health care organizations to work effectively. This in turn makes it difficult to provide quality care. Organizations having poor or weak culture affect the performance of the employees in the organization. Poor organizational culture leads to poor working conditions for all the employees in the organization. The poor organizational culture leads to stress and lower quality patient care. Doctors and nurses perform poorly in adverse working conditions. This leads to poor quality of care. This is according to a study carried out to determine how organizational culture affects doctor’s performance and quality of performance. Most health care organizations do not have strong organizational culture and this has influenced the performance of the employees (Moss amp; Dobson, 2006). Apart from the organizational culture, organizational structure affects the quality of care in health care organizations. Organizations are structured differently depending on their goals. The structure of an organization is important as it determines how it works and also its performance. Organizational structure allows different entities in the organization to be allocated different roles. Health care organizations have organization structure. The organizational structure affects how the health care organizations carry out their functions. Large organizations find it difficult to provide high quality care to patients. This is because of their complexity and fragmentation of duties in the health organizations. The organizations are not able to enhance physician and patient satisfaction. As the health care organizations grow, the work in the organization tends to become differentiated. Complex tasks in the organization are subdivided into small tasks and each employee is assigned a specific task. Large health care organizations find it difficult to define the responsibilities of different employees in the organization. The organizations find it difficult to measure the output of each employee. This influences the quality of care in the organizations as the managers do not have the right information to improve quality of care. Hence, dying patients receiving care from the hospitals get poor services (Imhof amp; Kaskie, 2008). Additionally, communication is a major problem in health care organizations that have complex organizational structures. Employees are not able to communicate clearly and this leads to conflicts. This hinders employees from providing quality care to patients (Imhof amp; Kaskie, 2008). Organization governance also affects the quality of care. Organizational governance refers to leadership in health care organizations. Many health care organizations do not have good leadership. The organizations do not have transformational leadership. This makes it difficult for managers to lead the employees. Poor leadership affects the performance of employees. This makes it difficult to provide quality care to patients (Imhof amp; Kaskie, 2008). Further, health care organizations should allocate human resources so as to improve delivery of health care in the organization. The organizations experience shortage of nurses and doctors. The shortage has affected the quality of care in the institutions. Allocating human resources in health care organization is vital as the health care organization  Ã‚   lack enough workers. This has affected productivity and performance in health care organizations (Morrison, 2010). There are ethical issues that are tied to allocation of resources. The allocation of resources should be cost effective. Health care organizations should be able to allocate the limited resources well so as to maximize the health benefits for the community being served. Allocating resources poorly affects the population being served. Allocating resources is a moral issue. People allocate resources that produce fewer benefits than the benefits that would have been produced by allocating more resources. Most people are not able to allocate resources well so as to meet the needs of the community. Second, the resources should be allocated equally. It is difficulty to allocate resources equally and this affects the health of the community (Morrison, 2010) . There are various strategies that can be used to change the structure, governance and culture in health care organization. Also, the strategies can be used to change social responsibility. First, the health care organization needs to change the organization culture. It should identify the current organizational culture. This will help the employees decide the organizational culture they want. After that they should develop the organizational culture they want. They should also change their behaviors so as to develop the organizational culture. Changing the organizational structure will also help overcome the issue. The organizational structure affects the culture in the organization. They should embrace organizational structure that promotes quality care like a small organization. They should also encourage diversity training to help eliminate conflicts and poor communication in the organization (Morrison, 2010). The organizational governance can be changed. The health care organizations should change their leadership style. They should embrace transformational leadership, but not transactional leadership. Transformational leadership allows managers and workers in the organization to work together to achieve the goals set. This will in turn improve quality of care. Transactional leadership does not encourage managers and employees work towards achieving the goals (Health care reform to have impact on ethics, 2010). The health care organization should change its social responsibility. It should form positive relations with the community and other stakeholders. This will encourage the organizations to provide quality care (Health care reform to have impact on ethics, 2010). Lastly, the health care organizations should change the organizational  Ã‚   structure. It should study the objectives, mission and vision of the organization. Then it should study the organizational chart to see if it’s good or bad. The organizational chart can have  Ã‚   many top positions and no enough workers. After analyzing the chart, the health care managers should develop the chart well to fit its functions and implement the changes (Health care reform to have impact on ethics, 2010). The health care organization should change its social responsibility. It should form positive relations with the community and other stakeholders. This will encourage the organizations to provide quality care (Health care reform to have impact on ethics, 2010). Lastly, the health care organizations should change the organizational structure. It should study the objectives, mission and vision of the organization. Then it should study the organizational chart to see if it’s good or bad. The organizational chart can have  Ã‚   many top positions and no enough workers. After analyzing the chart, the health care managers should develop the chart well to fit its functions and implement the changes (Health care reform to have impact on ethics, 2010). The quality of care is affected by several factors. It is affected by organizational culture and structure. Poor organization culture and structure lead to poor services. This affects the quality of care given to patients. Also, quality of care is affected by organizational governance and social responsibilities. Poor leadership in the organization affects delivery of services. To overcome the effects, the health care organizations should allocate financial and human resources. They should change organizational culture, structure, governance and social responsibility.