Managing Quality in Health Care Sector - Essay Example

? Managing Quality In Health Care Sector Introduction Quality is essential in the healthcare sector, and any organisation in the sector is affected by the issues of quality assurance (McLaughlin & Kaluzny, 2006). Health care is concerned with the health and lives of human beings, and in this case, it is essential to note that quality assurance in this sector is beyond just rhetoric. Organisations should be able to increase the ways in which they manage quality in delivering health and well being to the people they serve. This, as Harris (2006) says, in relevant because any organisation should identify the ways in which they will improve service quality exponentially, making healthcare delivery increasingly better with every consecutive year. According to Donabedian (2002) there is a need for medical professionals to be able to achieve quality in service delivery. To achieve this, medical professionals must be given the ability to work with autonomy and must be able to apply professionalism and ethics in their ability to deliver healthcare services. For as long as quality in the delivery of healthcare is essential, there are numerous challenges which will continue to face the healthcare sector. Some of these challenges include but are not limited to the following challenges; Incompetent human resource management Incompetence in human resource management is a significant issue in the delivery of high quality healthcare (Nkomo, Fottler & McAfee, 2010). Researchers in the healthcare industry have identified that human resource management in the healthcare sector is poorly done. This poor human resource management has caused poor cooperation among healthcare partners such as the managers and the workers. This is because as long as the senior management is not able to manage the human resource, there is no way organisations may be able to deliver high quality service delivery. Well managed relationships between the various stakeholders in a healthcare organisation can be used as a vehicle to achieve quality service delivery. Enhancing cooperation and team work among the workers is important so as to facilitate in making sure that all participants in healthcare delivery are able to work together in achieving high quality in the delivery of services to the patients (Shi, 2010). To understand why human resource management is poor in the healthcare industry, it is good to point to the nature of healthcare work which set healthcare personnel apart from the rest careers. To begin with, healthcare services are needed around the clock, and this means that most healthcare personnel cannot have the 8:00 to 5:00 working day like in many other occupations (Niles, 2013). These healthcare workers must be able to be on duty full time so as to take care of patients at all time. Failing to have well coordinated human resource is a significant factor and there is no doubt it contributes in determining the quality of services in the healthcare sector (Harris, 2006). Many healthcare facilities are not able to have a good human resource management which can affect the way the hospital’s human resources are managed. In many cases, hospitals and other healthcare organisations use healthcare personnel to manage the human resource, and many do not have a fully fledged human resource department. As Nkomo (2010) says, it is highly serious for players in this sector to facilitate effective leadership and make sure that human resource are well managed and that there are good and progressive relationship between the working staff and the healthcare organizations. Information availability The other issue that quality management in healthcare delivery faces is the lack of acquisition of ICT resources to harness knowledge management strategies (Bali, 2005). The rapid development of the information and communication has aided in information sharing. The healthcare sector should be able to tap this potential to help in increasing healthcare services quality and make sure patients can have the best service. While other sectors have widely used the developments in the healthcare industry as a way to improve service delivery, the healthcare sector has failed to use the available information and communication technology to enhance service delivery. In a modern world, everything has become information driven, and there is a need for any organisation to make sure that information in the organisation is readily available to those who need it (Lighter & Fair, 2004). However in doing so, there is always a need to protect patient information. Most practitioners in the healthcare sector however are unable to achieve quality because they cannot access critical information. For instance, most professionals cannot access information about the objectives and policies of the organisation. If the information sharing is increased in the delivery of healthcare services, the organisation is able to increase revenues and expand profit margins because they are able to deliver ht eservices in a faster and more effective manner. Helping the employee to be able to access relevant and necessary information they need may also help in reducing employee turnover in the organisation which in turn helps in making sure that the organisation has more experienced professionals, all leading to better quality management (Harris, 2006). ICT should also be used to improve knowledge management in the organisation and make sure that the organisation is able to retain its knowledge well. This will also help the organisation to be able to be competitive in a global environment. Cultural values and differences Cultural differences are also a significant challenge for the healthcare sector. This is a challenge which affects businesses across the corporate environment. However, in the healthcare industry, cultural differences make a truly significant challenge. In fact, cultural differences may be a principal source of lack of cooperation among workers in an organisation thus making quality delivery a big challenge (Donabedian, 2002). Poor leadership The success of an organisation can be directly linked to the effectiveness of leadership in the organisation (Lighter & Fair, 2004). The fact that leadership affects the way the organisation performs is common knowledge. However, there is a great need to study further exactly how leadership and managerial functions within the healthcare industry affects the way an organisation performs and the way in which the organisation creates a positive or negative culture. More so, the research on organisational leadership has focused so much on the private sector and not on the not-for-profit sector which make as a huge part of the healthcare sector. Other sectors have benefited from extensive research on the subject of leadership while the healthcare sector has lagged behind in leadership research and development, and this has given the sector massive challenges. Yet, leadership in any organisation is crucial as it offers the staff a sense of direction and gives them a purpose of the organisation. Good leadership helps in moulding and modifying the vision of the organization and at the same time helps in creating the direction and mission of the organization (Lighter & Fair, 2004). If the leaders are not clear about the mission and the vision of the organization, it is impossible for the subordinate staff to align to this vision. At the same time, change management is another issue that affects any organization especially in the modern global business environment which constantly needs the organization to change (Shi, 2010). Unfortunately, many managers are not able to handle the increasingly complex process of change management. Without being able to manage the process well, managers in the healthcare sector are having enough challenges in implementing necessary changes. Good leadership also helps in strategy development which is a vital part of improving the organization and making sure that the organization is increasingly competent. Without being able to achieve effective change management and strategy development, managers in healthcare are finding it harder to be able to increase the ways in they can increase and manage quality. Good leadership also helps in achieving organization design which makes culture management easier (Niles, 2013). Furthermore, effective and productive collaboration can also be achieved if and only if there is god leadership. With poor leadership though, it is not possible to achieve any of this, thus increasing the chance that the organization will not be successful in managing quality in service delivery. According to Donabedian (2002), if the managers are not able to make any good planning, quality management is maimed, and the organization is not able to manage any quality management issues. As already discussed poor leadership makes it impossible for managers to implement change which is the only way to implement new quality management strategies. In this regard, when the manager finds it difficult to facilitate change, it is therefore not possible for managers to be able to implement any changes which are geared towards improving and managing quality. There are a number of issues which affect change management in the organization. For instance, as McLaughlin & Kaluzny (2006) says, even those employees who are well educated are also like to resist change due to fear of losing their control over what they do. The most important thing to note is that quality management cannot be seen as something that is done once. In this regard, the only way that a healthcare organization can maintain continual quality in their service delivery is by having a total quality management plan which will help in continual development and management quality. Quality management experts such as Donabedian (2002) recommend that for an organization to effectively manage quality, the organization should be able to help have a continuous quality magnet process which is geared towards eliminating errors in the service delivery. Medical doctors have also been seen as significant barriers in the improvement of quality delivery because they are closed to the idea of change. They are afraid of change because they paranoid about losing autonomy of their work because the history of medicine has always placed autonomy on the doctor. In a nutshell, human resource barriers to quality management include; unsatisfied personnel, unmotivated staff, employees not having enough interest in the managerial functions of the organization, lack of interest by medical doctors to change the status quo, poor leadership, and poor education of employees about the need to change and to implement TQM systems. Structural barriers include limited resources in many healthcare organizations, poor organizational structure which makes change management harder, and timeline issues and poor budgeting. Inflexibility in the healthcare sector such as standard procedures which must be followed also makes change management impossible. This makes the organization too flexible for any changes to be introduced and therefore introducing new strategies geared towards TQM is not easy. Possible solutions Human resource management issues The main issue identified as leading to poor human resource management problems is that the healthcare sector has not adopted professional human resource management. Most healthcare organisations, from big to small, fail to have a full human resource management department (Niles, 2013). In this regard, the best way that healthcare organisation can take care of this issue of human resource management issues is by reconstructing the human resource department. Professionalising the human resource management function will help in making sure that human resource management issues have been eliminated. Information availability Any healthcare organisation can deal with this issue in a smooth way. The only problem with adopting ICT infrastructure is that the organisation may end up getting hype of the technology. Some of the best clues to having a successful ITC acquisition are by having a systematic way to acquiring the technology. In a nutshell, any organization seeking to implement ICT technology should look at the following issues; Involve everyone The biggest mistake that an organisation can do is to start a significant technology project without the participation of everyone in the organisation. Involving everyone means that the organisation must be able to involve anyone whose work will be affected by the new technology. This includes even the lowest of the employees. Healthcare organisations should seek to do proper systems analysis and be able to identify all user needs before implementing a system. Gradual acquisitions In systems development, this is called prototyping where models of an information system are introduced, used for a certain length of time and then identifying all the areas where the system may need improvements. Once this information has been received, the system is then improved and then a better version of the model is improved. This continues until the system is able to meet the needs. Cultural issues Once an organisation is able to implement a professional human resource management, this can then be used as a way to implement cultural change and definition (Niles, 2013). Creating a positive culture of teamwork will help these organisations to be able to deal with the issue of quality management. Poor leadership Leadership training is becoming highly significant, and it is becoming necessary for organisations to be able to train their leaders on leadership issues. Successful organisations such as Google and Microsoft have used modern leadership training concepts such as career coaches to improve leadership in their organisations. Healthcare organisations should also use the same strategy to help in dealing with poor leadership in their organisations. Part II According to Moullin (2000), there are a number of key issues which must be considered when implementing quality management in the healthcare environment. These are summarised below. Key element one: leadership The key to implementing a successful quality management system lies in good leadership. Good leadership in any organisation makes it possible for strategy development and also enhances human resource motivation towards achieving organisational goals (Harris, 2006). In my hospital leaders are given the mandate to implement and enforce the organisational goals, policies and rules. They are also given power to promote those who are under them, retain employees who they feel are working in accordance to the organisational policies and goals and dismiss employees who the organisation needs to get rid of. With this kind of power and authority vested in them, leaders in my hospital have the power to determine the destiny of an organisation (Nkomo, 2010). Managers can also set personal as well as organisational goals. These organisational goals are then passed on to their subordinates in order to achieve them and in this case, leadership plays a prominent role in setting goals and the direction of the organisation. Leadership in quality management should be focused on creating not only an environment but also systems which allow and encourage each and every participant to continually improve themselves and the processes they handle to become better and of better quality. Good leadership also means that a leader is able to identify the issues of competencies for effective leadership. This includes good leadership skills and appreciating the diversity of work in planning and developing solutions for problems. At the same time, a wise leader should learn and understand various issues as they arise and know how to attend to them. Continual development and improvement of the organization is also a central part of good leadership. As a leader, the ability to motivate people is not a choice, and this determines how effective a leader is. If a leader is extremely good at planning and strategizing but fails to have the necessary skills to motivate employees to buy his vision and be passionate about it as much as he is, he will definitely fail in his mission as a leader (Shi, 2010). A good leader will also need to be able to look at issues and understand how different issues interact with each other and from this be able to create ways to make things work. With regard to my organization, it has clear goals as with regard to where they want to go with regard to development of the organization. This organization can achieve improvement by having SMART goals and by motivating their employees. The problem the organization is experiencing is lack of proper training and also lack of enough emphasis on quality improvement. This is very critical because employee training is a vital aspect of quality development. Employees should be trained through various approaches which include coaching by more experienced professionals, involvement in role rotation which exposes the employees to various jobs and experiences, training on how to achieve certain objectives etc. Key element two: partnership Poor relationship between the employees and management in my hospital is caused by a few critical factors. These factors include lack of understanding of the systems in place, failing to understand some varying roles in the organisational context, and mysterious procedures and processes. In this organization, partnership has been achieved with various stakeholders, and this has helped a lot in increasing quality in service delivery. For instance, the organization has managed to be able to partner with the department of the education, community centers, the local police department and other useful stakeholders. This partnership is particularly useful to the organization is good in increasing trust among the various agencies and between these agencies and the organization. Key element three: Focus on patients The other aspect of quality improvement is full involvement of the patients and the healthcare service givers such as care givers (Moullin, 2002). By facilitating the collaboration of patients and their care giver, it is possible to have better health outcomes for those seeking medical help and also for the caregivers. This is used in my hospital to achieve high quality of service. The caregiver will be able to understand the patient better, and the patient will benefit by getting better healthcare. In fact, having the patient participate in the process of getting healthcare will help in giving them psychological rewards which will lead to better healthcare as well as well being for the patient. Allowing the caregivers and patients to participate in the process has also made it possible for caregivers to be able to identify any potential future challenges and this can help in providing for a solution before the problems gets out of hand. Employees' issues must be addressed. In my hospital, the role of every employee in the organisation including those who do not directly participate in patient care is essential in determining the quality of service that the patient gets. Motivating these employees towards improving their quality of work will therefore be helpful in managing quality of service delivery to patients in healthcare sector. To achieve this, lifelong education and training will have to be encouraged among staff, especially medical staff who directly gives services to the patients (Shi, 2010). Quality management in the healthcare sector should focus upon two the patient. This means that it should concentrate on increasing the quality of the care that a patient gets (Donabedian, 2002). In my hospital, this is taken care of as the quality management used in the organisation is focused on the patients. However, there is not direct way of relating this approach and an increase or improvement in quality of delivery of service in the hospital. References: Bali, B. (2005). Clinical Knowledge Management: Opportunities and Challenges. London: Idea Group Inc (IGI). Donabedian, A. (2002). An Introduction to Quality Assurance in Health Care. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harris, M. (2006). Managing Health Services: Concepts And Practice, 2nd Ed. Sydney, AU: Elsevier Australia. Lighter, J. & Fair, C.D. (2004). Quality Management in Health Care: Principles and Methods, 2nd ed. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. McLaughlin, C. & Kaluzny, A.D. (2006). Continuous Quality Improvement in Health Care: Theory, Implementations, and Applications. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Moullin, M. (2000). Delivering Excellence in Health and Social Care: Quality, Excellence and Performance Measurement. Milton Keynes: Open University Press. Niles, J. (2013). Basic Concepts of Health Care Human Resource Management. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Nkomo, S. F. (2010). Human Resource Management Applications, 7th ed. London: Cengage Learning. Shi, L. (2010). Managing Human Resources in Health Care Organizations. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Read More