Ways to Improve Group Productivity within a hospital or medical facility - Research Paper Example

? This paper identifies the problems that group collaborations face within an hospital organization. It highlights the methodologies of improving the efficiency of groups within an hospital organization, while conducting their duties. After thorough research, problems such as conflict of roles within a group, excessive intergroup conflict, failure to achieve cohesiveness amongst members who belong to diverse cultures and communication problems arose. In analyzing this problems, this paper focuses on the department of admissions,the department of public relations, the department of social work, and the department of medical records which are found in an hospital organization. This paper gives an explanation on the impact of the problems under consideration, and identifies the policies which administrators within the hospital set up need to enact for purposes of ensuring efficiency in meeting the goals of the hospital organization. This is because if administrators do not develop solutions to the problems the organization faces, chances are high that the hospital might fail to provide better health care services to its customers. This paper contains suggestions ofthe best training program that could enhance group productivity. Lorenzi (2004) denotes that training is a method of continuous appraisal, since the medical staff acquires relevant skills that are essential to serve the current health care needs of the organizations customers. This paper has a conclusion, and it is a summary of the main points addressed in it. One of the problems facing group productivity within the hospital set up is the conflict that emanate from lack of a clear guideline on the role of members within a collaborative group. For instance, within the admissions department of the hospital, there is a group that coordinates the admission of patients, another group prepares their admission, while another group arranges for any reservation of a patients admission. These are devise roles within the admission departmentand because of a clear guideline on the role of members who are in this unit, a conflict of roles emanate. For instance, the group that coordinates the admission of patients is headed by a team leader; it is this person who assigns duties, depending on the present circumstance. A situation arises when such an individual did not report for work because of personal or official issues. Members of the group will be confused because nobody will assign them duties, leading to each of them carrying out tasks that were not meant for them. This therefore leads to a rise of conflict of roles, and its result is inefficiency in meeting the objectives of the admissions department (Lorenzi, 2005). To improve on this problem, it is important for the organization to develop a policy that will guide in assigning roles to the various members of its staff. To effectively implement this policy, the organization must create an office, whose main responsibility is to monitor the performance of employees in relation to their specific tasks, and how they contribute in meeting the objectives of the organization. Another major problem that arose from the research is lack of an effective communication capability amongst the various members of different groups within the hospital organization. This problem can affect all the departments of the organization, which includes the admissions department, the public relations department, the medical records department, the maintenance and engineering department and the department of social work. This is because communication is the key that drives the growth of any department of an organization. For instance, the duties of the department of public relations are to solve the problems of out and in patients. If the department lacks modernized communication gadgets such as computers, they will be unable to effectively offer this service to their customers (Kongstvedt, 1997).The reason to this argument is because of the modernization of the communication processes. This refers to the use of emerging methods of communication such as the social media. This method of communication is fast, accurate and efficient. Chances are also high that the message will reach its intended recipient, and information will not be lost. Poor communication can also manifest itself by the inability to maintain eye contacts, inability to listen, and inability to provide feedback on a question. Communication problems can adversely affect the hospital organization if members of its medical records department lack this essential skill. This is because it is the department that keeps all the medical records of the organization. Boyle (2001) denotes that to effectively record a file, it is important for the staff to acquire the necessary skill that will make him or her identify the file, and the correct place where the file should be. All this are aspects of communication, and failure to have this skill amongst employees, might result to failure of an organization meeting its objectives (Boyle, 2001). Inability to efficiently communicate can also impact negatively on the manner in which the department of social work carries out its functions. For instance the department of social work provides help to patients who have psychological, financial and social problems. To handle this duties efficiently, the department needs staff thathave good communication skills (Lorenzi, 2005). For instance, the department of social work can categorize itself into groups/ units. One group handles patients with financial problems; another group handles patients with psychological problems, while another group handles patients with social problems. To efficiently handle these categories of people, it is important for the employees of the department to have knowledge and skills of communicating effectively to these vulnerable people. This will enable the department to acquire crucial information that can be used for the treatment of such individuals. On this note therefore, failure to possess these skills, will result to failure of the department to achieve its objective of protecting vulnerable patients (Lorenzi, 2005). Personal communication skills that employees of this department must have include listening skills, and ability to provide concise and accurate feedback when required. To solve this problem, the hospital organization needs to initiate a compulsory training program on the methods of improving a person’s communication skills (Boyle, 2001). This program must also factor in the current trends and methodologies of communication in the health care industry. The hospital organization must also invest in computers, and creation of telegraph lines for purposes of improving the communication capability of its department of public relations.The organization must also identify members of its staff who lack personal qualification capabilities. It should do this through performance appraisals. Members who lack basic communication skills such as listening capabilities, and ability to provide accurate feedback must be sacked.This will give the hospital organization an opportunity to re-hire talented individuals, whose communication ability is high (Mason, Leavitt and Chaffee, 2012). This will increase the efficiency in which its works force achieves the objectives of the organization. Another problem identified the inability to create a sense of togetherness amongst the employees of the organization. This inability to create cohesiveness emanates from the different cultures that members of the organization come from (Borkowski, 2005). While it is important to recruit from amongst different groups, to create diversity within an organization, it can also hinder the progress of an organization because of the conflicting cultural beliefs that members of the organization have. For example, if a group of surgeons come from different cultures, and if they work as a unit, the cultural believes of some of them might affect their work. Take an example of a Christian surgeon, working together with a Muslim surgeon. The two might disagree on their religious beliefs, and this might affect the manner in which they conduct their work. Another example involves when different people from different languages are engaged in group work at the hospital. For example, the department of social work hires Spanish speaking people, the English Speaking People and African immigrants to work at their department. Most obviously, language would be a barrier; even if they will have the capability of speaking English, there will be some accents, making it difficult for these people to understand each other. This can create communication breakdown, resulting to the inability of the department to achieve its goals (Borkowski, 2005). To correct this situation, the organization must ensure that the nature of staff they employ are fluent in English, even though English is not their first language. The organization must also train its employees on the importance of creating cohesiveness within a business organization (Lee and Mongan, 2009). This will make employees of the organization to view themselves as part and parcel of the organization, and not as individuals.Another problem encountered is excessive conflicts within the groups. This conflict arose because of the various interests of the members of the organization. Take an example of an ambitious employee at the department of social work. The interest of such an employee might be to lead the department, and if he or she is placed in another section of the department, that is not leadership oriented, he or she might lose interest in the work. This would most definitely create a conflict between he or her and her supervisors, resulting to failure of the department to achieve its objective of helping vulnerable customers. To correct this situation, it is important for the organization to create a clear guideline of how it expects its employees to behave. The organization also needs to create a guideline on the methodologies of promoting its employees, and the requirements of promotion (Lee and Mongan, 2009). After analyzing these problems of the organization within the hospital set up, and providing recommendations on how to solve them, it is important to denote that the most efficient method of improving the performance of the business organization is to train its staff, and equip them with skills that reflect the current needs of customers. On this respective therefore, the best training model for the organization to engage in is the on job training methodology (Mason, Leavitt and Chaffee, 2012). In this method, the organization imparts new skills to its employees by giving them an opportunity to learn while they work. This also helps them to acquire experience in the given sector, and therefore improves the efficiency in which the organization conducts its own affairs. For example, the organization introduces the use of computer software that has the capability of relaying multiple messages to the phone numbers of its customers. To ensure that its staff at the public relations department acquires the skill of using the software, the management will allow them to learn on its use while working, but under the supervision of an expert. With time, employees of the department will learn on how to use them, therefore improving the level of their communication capability. Classroom training is efficient in imparting ethical behaviors amongst the employees of the organization. It is at the classroom, that the organization will manage to convince employees on the importance of maintain harmony amongst themselves (Borkowski, 2005). This will create an environment whereby employees will manage to effectively work, therefore exposing their talents. This can lead to the development of such talents by the administration through further training, or promotion of the talented employee. In conclusion, all organizations have weaknesses, but it is the manner in which the organization responds to these weaknesses that determines the success of a business organization. The most efficient respond from an organization in solving problems that emanate from conflicts concerning the various roles within groups, communication problems, excessive inter-group conflict and lack of cohesiveness within an organization is to train its staff on the ethical requirements of the organization, and develop a guideline on the expectations that the organization has towards its employees. Training will also help in imparting new skills that would enable the employees of the organization to serve the needs of their customers. On this note therefore, an organization must plan on how it would continuously train its employees for purposes of serving the interest of the organization, and their own development. References: Borkowski, N. (2005). Organizational behavior in health care. Sudbury, Mass.: Jones and Bartlett Publishers. Boyle, P. (2001). Organizational ethics in health care principles, cases, and practical solutions. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Kongstvedt, P. R. (1997). Essentials of managed health care (2nd ed.). Gaithersburg, Md.: Aspen Publishers. Lee, T. H., &Mongan, J. J. (2009).Chaos and organization in health care. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Lorenzi, N. M. (2005). Transforming health care through information (2nd ed.). New York: Springer. Mason, D. J., Leavitt, J. K., & Chaffee, M. W. (2012). Policy & politics in nursing and health care (6th ed.). St. Louis, Mo.: Elsevier/Saunders. Top of Form Bottom of Form Top of Form Bottom of Form Read More