Health Care Governance - Essay Example

The Health Care Organization picked for this assignment was the Chris Ridge Village Center, owned by the Chris Ridge Village Inc. The Chris Ridge Village Center assists elderly citizens as a retirement home and, additionally, also provides assistance to those diagnosed with the Alzheimer's disease. The facility has a total number of 150 beds, with 80 of these being attended to by Medicaid certified skilled nurses1. In order to attend to patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's, the retirement home provides 30 beds and participated in both the Medicare and Medicaid programs. In terms of staff provided by the facility, we can mention a total number of 11.29 full-time equivalent licensed practical/vocational nurses employed, 14.29 full-time equivalent food service personnel under contract and 1.54 full-time equivalent occupational therapists under contract. In terms of services offered to the patients/residents, the Chris Ridge Village Center boasts a wide array of services ranging from mental health services, dental care services and occupational therapy services to nursing services, pharmacy services and speech/language pathology services. Practically, the health care organization divides its attention between strictly health-related services for its residents and recreational services. The two interviews addressed one member of each side of the stakeholders' group: the senior management, on one side, charged with providing the general strategic direction for the organization, as well as the strategic goals and plans designed to make the organization fully functional, and, on the other side, the customers, the facility's residents, whose obvious main goal is to receive the best kind of treatment from the personnel. The interviews revealed the specific impact that each of the two categories of stakeholders had on governance in the mentioned health organization. While on one hand, the senior management influences governance especially in a direct manner, by compiling feedbacks from other groups of stakeholders and conceiving the best methodologies to attained proposed goals for all groups, the customers/residents impacted governance especially in an indirect manner, by indirectly conceiving caring variables that needed to be reached. The Senior Management Interview The senior manager interviewed revealed the double-nature of his activity. He mentioned that, as in any health care organization, there is a duality between addressing the residents' needs at the highest possible standards and, on the other hand, keeping track of financial records so as to ensure the financial stability of the organization. He showed that, differently from a profit-making organization, where the sole objective of the senior management is to maximize the company's profits, in a health care organization, the most important strategic objective is to provide the best care for the customers. Naturally, we were bound to ask how this objective can be fulfilled, given strict financial management considerations. The answer came with difficulty, especially given the nature of the activity at Chris Ridge and the consumer profile. Dealing with elderly residents, many of them in their final stages of their life and many of them diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, the health care organization is always asking the same question, for each resident in part: how much do we invest in this customer and, subsequently, how much is it ethical to not invest in that particular customer So, as the senior manager showed, the ethical and financial issues always collided when dealing with a problem. The senior manager, however, pointed again during the interview to the importance of fulfilling the main declared strategic objective of the organization: providing the best care for the consumers. As such, financial issues were laid aside at Chris Ridge and the organization invested in recreational and physical therapists, in a staff of excellently prepared nurses, in the highest medical technologies available in the industry, in a diversified portfolio of medical services offered to the customers, including dental and pharmaceutical services. Naturally, we were bound to ask how the organization's financials corroborated with servicing the strategic objective at Chris Ridge. The senor manager was keen to mention help from the government and the presence of the organization in both the Medicare and Medicaid programs are arguments to back up his assertions. Lowering making profit to a lower ranked objective allowed the organization to fulfill its primary strategic goal. There was one last questions referring to the presence of the Chris Ridge Village Health Center on the nursing home watch list in 20042. Agreeably, in terms of governance, the analyzed health care organization also needed to keep a keen eye on the public opinion and the ethical allegations. The senior manager explained that the presence on the nursing home watch list in 2004 was only a level 1 deficiency (there are four severity levels defining the watch list) and that it referred to organizational issues that the health care center faced in 2004. Certainly, one of the short-term objectives for the organization in 2005 and, subsequently, in 2006, referred to improving the standard of the services offered so that no such problems may occur in the future. The Customer/Resident Interview The customer interview was carried out with an 85-years old resident, who had been in the facility for over 2 years. Naturally, we wanted to find out what he expected from the health care center, noting that the answer would enable us to draw conclusions on the impact the consumer group had on governance within the health care organization. The interviewee answered that he expected the best, 24-hours a day, 7 days a week care from the staff involved and that he wanted to feel, like all the other patients probably, that he is always in the center of attention. The health care organization provided not only medical services for him, but also the capacity of socializing with the other residents. For him, it was not only important to receive the medical services that the health care center provided, but also to benefit from recreational and social services. He said he had picked the Chris Ridge center exactly because, due to the large number of nurses and doctors, as well as the therapists, he would be receiving the attention he needed. He was also attracted by the recreational services that were provided. In this sense, following the two interviews previously presented, we were able to draw several conclusions on the impact each category of stakeholders had on the health care organization's governance, as well as on the strategic development of the organization in the future. Interesting enough, both categories of stakeholders carried the organization in the same direction. The customer/resident required full-time attention and the best services, both medical and recreational. On the other hand, the senior manager had already noted that full customer satisfaction was the main purpose of the organization and that all the measures promoted by the senior management were designed in this direction. Certainly, the problem that the senior management faced was that, while the consumer had a single goal in mind, the senior management had to provide financial answers to fulfill these strategic objectives as well. Governmental programs would be sure to provide financial aid in the future as well for these actions. Bibliography 1. Nursing Home Watch List - Arizona. On the Internet at http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/consumer-protection/shopping-for-a-nursing-home-505/nursing-home-watch-list/arizona.htm 2. Chris Ridge Village Health Centre - Phoenix. On Hospital - Data, on the Internet at http://www.hospital-data.com/hospitals/CHRIS-RIDGE-VILLAGE-HEALTH-CENTER-PH290.html 3. National Nursing Home Watch List. On the Internet at http://www.memberofthefamily.net/usmap.htm Read More