Multinational Hospital Administration - Research Proposal Example

Increased competitiveness is a common aim in the healthcare and hospital field if it is running from a business model. “While a core competence is something a company does well internally, what makes it a core competence, as opposed to just a competence, is that it is central to a company’s competitiveness and profitability rather than peripheral” (Thompson and Strickland, 1997). This research project aims to determine what the core competencies and aptitudes of hospital administrators. The project has several objectives and sub-objectives. The main objective is to gather data on the roles that hospital administrators are required to perform and the competencies, education, and experience that are prerequisites to this role. The average hospital administrator in the United States makes twice as much as a ward physician. Furthermore, hospital administrators are considered to receive better holidays and overall working conditions than their peers who are still working in a hands-on fashion with patients.

Hospital managers are thought to encourage an atmosphere of communication and teamwork in the workplace that will motivate them, instead of tempting them with fraud and misbehavior. They can also provide these employees with encouragement in more individualized ways, such as choosing a system to publicly honor an employee, in which the awarded employee has their name and picture placed on a plaque that can be seen by others. Using this method, administrators and managers can foster an atmosphere of friendly competition where leadership and hard work are shown to have visible rewards. Performance-based measures like these, according to the what gets rewarded gets done perspective, can go a long way toward improving the efficiency and effectiveness of employees.

Background
Hospital administrators worldwide need to realize that employee motivation and effectiveness in reward power, in terms of financial and non-financial incentives as well as in terms of comparison with other types of power. The research could therefore find the most effective typology of differentiating the effectiveness of positional leadership against more organic methods. The motivation for physicians to move into the role of hospital administrator is obvious. Both the pay and the conditions of the job are substantially improved (Lighter, 2000). The problem is that due to advancements in technology and the general increase in size and complicity of the average healthcare setting, there is now a greater need for administrators at an extremely high personnel cost to the healthcare setting (Mefford, 2009).

Methodology
This research project will review the literature on contemporary hospital administration and leadership, and also make international comparisons. The project will take a systematic review of the trends occurring in this field with a particularly close investigation of the up-and-coming role of information technology in hospital administration. It is estimated that empirical evidence from a wide range of associated fields will need to be studied to gain a comprehensive idea of hospital administrators (Carlson, 2005). The review of literature will also aim to include the latest discourse on the topic as well as review current pathways to hospital executive positions in other countries. “Most Americans say they are satisfied with the U.S. healthcare system, but more than 70 percent of Germans, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and Britons say that their systems need "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding” (American, 2009). People tend to have universal goals of responsive and timely healthcare.

Programs of international comparison could include Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal Specialized Hospital. “KFSH&RC is an 894-bed multi-facility, multi-entity tertiary care hospital and one of the leading healthcare institutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Its mission is to provide medical services of a highly specialized nature and promote medical research and education programs, including postgraduate education training, as well as contribute to the prevention of disease” (King, 2009). It is also important, as mentioned above, to look at the role of Information Technology in the healthcare environment. Read More