Organization as a Structure and a Complex Process - Essay Example

Organization structure An organization is a group of likeminded people who come to work together, under formal and informal procedures to achieve common objectives and goals. Individuals who constitute an organization must have a common purpose for harmony to be achieved in an organization. The concept also refers to policies, procedures and methods that are used to achieve a common interest. Therefore, it is a structure and a complex process. The structure element refers to lines of authority, delegation and communication in either a formal or informal way. Process on the other hand refers to techniques used in achieving organizational goals. Structures of formal organizations are outlined in an organizational chart, which acts as a “blueprint” showing its functions, activities and formal relations (Roussel 2013 pg 56). The principal reason for clarifying the organization structure is to clearly show the chain of command, official communication lines, span of control and connections for all department personnel. It is important to note that an organization is a society of people; therefore, delivery of health care services is a very vital element in an organizational setting. Health care services can be categorized by profit motive, type of ownership involved and whether the client is being admitted in the institution. Since time immemorial, hospitals and nursing institutions are the common health care service providers. The main role of nursing in organizations is care service administration. This is where activities are coordinated to enable provision of nursing services to the personnel in various departments of an organization. Nursing service administration is a guided process where activities are aimed at improving nursing care for clients within an organization. This includes establishment of overall goals and policies that can be accommodated in the organizations’ major goals. Through this, an organization is able to provide facilities and skilled staff such as nurses to accomplish these goals. The organization therefore is able to do this in the most economical and effective manner because of high level of professionalism used. It can only be achieved through, cooperation from all members of staff who will coordinate activities with other members of staff within various departments of the organization. Nursing in an organization creates an environment where marshalling of activities and resources to accomplish a goal is made possible. This can be an art and a scientific process where one can systematically analyze behavior of people over time. As they deal with people collectively or as an individual in relationship to their individual goals and purpose and draw general observations, which can be used for future foresight of events and actions. It can also be an art because it involves qualities of a lively character to enable effective application, in addition, nursing administration is a process that involves, organizing, planning, leading and controlling that comprises of material, human, information and financial resources in an organization scenario, this helps achieve predetermined objective. In an organizational concept nursing is a set of inter related social and technical roles taking place in a formal setting to achieve predetermined objectives through utilization of human and other relevant resources. Nursing in an organization is dedicated to provision of continuous individual and group health service within an organization. It addresses factors that are connected to health. The subsidiary objective of these functions are the professional techniques of management including human socialization and relation, teaching communication, personal development and research created to advance the primary objective of nursing. Nurses are professionals who are appointed in positions of authority, which create for others an environment to perform their work effectively. They have a good sense of responsibility for economic resource use and accountability of work. Organization attitude is its open and intended view of itself and that which it stands for. Generally, this is captured in the mission statement. The attitude or philosophy is directly connected and rooted in the organization’s cultural systems and values. Attitudes in an organization represent the desired relationship between health care services in an organization and its customers who can be employees and external individuals from the neighborhood of an organization (Maxfield & Parker 2012 pg 45). It is also a connection of beliefs that determine how organizational objectives are achieved; it also forms a basis for agency goals, procedures and objective. Nurses in organizations have the right to know the philosophy about health care of personnel in their stations. This should encompass nursing management and practice held by the collective group of the employees and management staff who are part of nursing department. A declaration of philosophy is a valuable tool in management and administrative purposes (Roussel 2013 pg 56). This therefore means that nurses should be given a copy of the statement before joining an organization so that they gauge whether the philosophy is in agreement with their own personal attitudes, this will enable them be contributing members of nursing department. Philosophy statements are largely enduring documents because they express firm commitment to the best can be achieved and most importantly they are derived from the larger goals of the organization. The nursing philosophy should have timeless characteristic because fundamental premises change only under an extra ordinary situations. However, philosophy statements have to be reviewed over a period. If a review is done all members in the nursing and other departments reveals that the statement is still relevant to their beliefs there is no need to change the philosophy statement (Eleanor 2013 pg90). If the review reveals that the statement is obsolete and inconsistent with the current institution goal or they are not effective in guiding actions of the department, then the statement is redesigned. This will ensure that the new statement meets procedure of compatibility, acceptability, attainability, measurability and accountability. While redesigning a philosophy the manger should consider research, practices, education, theory and nursing’s role in the entire organization. The goals of an organization affect those of the nursing service, the nursing goals support and compliment institutional objective and general goal. An organization with an aim of establishing a mental health program, the nursing department may concern itself with creating psychiatry. A perceptive manager of nursing must be proactive about organizational issues affecting nursing, community involvement in nursing and the nursing scenario within the organization it’s self. Nursing docket in this case will design a framework that will help nursing in the organization to meet challenges posed by care in future. This reflects the notion that main goal of nursing is to provide quality client care. It is of great important that each employee to comprehend the agency and nursing goal, because the unit and group goals are derived from them. Each nurse should contribute the creation of unit goals in the perspective of philosophy care, enhancement of nursing expertise and quality care. There contribution in the formulation of unit goals is important because these goals can identify a nurse’s area of interest. Development and execution of goals must form meaning to the nursing department this will enable the frame work put in place be successful because of the internalization of the segments and stages of implementation of the blue print of operation. This makes the nurses who are involved in nursing activities to feel that they are the originators of the objectives and goals. When an organization has an effective management, it makes its functions to operate smoothly with minimum conflict. This gives the nursing management an opportunity to demonstrate variety of ways of organizing the nursing care in a professional manner. Within this, ways and systems there are disadvantages and advantage concerning the quality of care, staff growth and use of resources. Nursing improves health care systems in organizations by introducing methods such as case method which can be traced back to the times of Nightingale Florence it began in the initial stages of nursing profession it has proved to be the most effective and convenient way of offering nursing care in the health care parameters (Eleanor 2013 pg67). In this approach, individuals are assigned to give care to each client including medicine and appropriate treatment. The nurses are then expected to give a report to their immediate superior in the organization or the working station however; it comes with the challenge of over span of control where a lot of people report to the head of department. Nursing can also improve organization’s environment through a strategy known as functional method. This approach deals with different levels of caregivers. Assignments are given to the caregivers according to level of competence of the caregiver. For instance, nurse aids are responsible for taking and interpreting signs to all patients, feeding and bathing while professional nurses are tasked with medication, treatment and other medicinal procedures. The head of nursing department is responsible for general supervision and direction of the nursing staff. The manager is also responsible for mobilizing his team for training, workshops and seminars. This improves the environment in the organization by supporting cost control and cutting personnel cost. Team nursing can also be integrated in organizations in order to realize effective patient care. The number of auxiliary staff in this approach is increased and nursing professions at this point are expected to assume full control of management function. Team nursing is designed for organizations that are in constant anticipation of influx of clients in large numbers. The head of nursing department in this particular point is expected to hand over span of control. This can be effectively implemented by arranging the caregivers in teams. The team consists of a professional nurse, which becomes the team leader; other members of the team should be registered members of the nursing community (Roussel 2013 pg 56). Individual members are assigned a patient according to their level of education and experience. To ensure competence and minimum chances for errors the team leader delegates tasks to his members using morning reports they give on progress of their individual patients. He also conducts a team conference to evaluate the progress and challenges met by his members in the field they also end up creating an update on the nursing plan. It involves changing the structure and organizational framework of the nursing department. This method will help introduce the team spirit in the organization that will bring about collective bargain in achieving the goals and aims of large organization such as hospitals in the healthcare environment. There are structural and organizational adjustments that are expected during the execution of this strategy the teams and their team leaders assume management functions on behalf of department. The authority in the organization is decentralized to the team leader to direct all the activities on behalf of the management. The head nurse is no longer the center of communication in the respective teams (Hanson & Kaakinen 2010 pg47). This improves the efficiency of the workforce because team leader is tasked with the responsibility of synchronizing the abilities and competence of his members so that they can focus on team relationship in a more effective way. The most crucial element is emphasis laid on the ability of all participants in care giving to plan, evaluate and administer duties. This approach of giving patients care represents more than reorganizing of the nursing service. Instead, it is a strategy of nursing and a philosophy of organizing patient care. This method has high potential of improving nursing in an organization because it supports comprehensive care, it increases job satisfaction and increases cost effectiveness reducing the overhead costs of an organization. New methods of care delivery have evolved in the recent time and this includes case management. This is a system of health management, planning, assessment, delivery coordination, service procurement and monitoring these helps nursing to meet the diverse needs of their clients. It is a comprehensive and all inclusive approach and is not restricted to the hospital environment ( Maxfield & Parker 2012 pg 67). When patients fail to respond to the care being offered, the nursing facilities in the organization are keen to correct the suspected problems. However, this requires a great deal of systematic knowledge about the history of the health of the patient. This knowledge is then put in form of a care plan with parameters to indicate progress or deviation from the critical paths. All these aspects of nursing in an organization put together pressures positive change in an organization because of better service. These factors often interact to reinforce one another and stimulate desired changes in an organization. Changes arise from these new strategies, employee attitude, technology and behavior. For example, a decision by a top nurse to seek a higher rate of long term development will spill over to other department of the organization. This may create room for innovators in an organization to come up with new ways of doing things that are in most cases adjustments on older plans and policies use in the care giving process. This makes nursing a major change agent in organizations coupled up with other internal and external forces (Eleanor 2013 pg67). Modification and change of operation in organizations bring benefits to both employees and the nursing department including their patience, in the instances of a hospital. Nurses also solve incompatible problems through collaboration in order to come up with mutually satisfying solutions. The result of these considerations is usually positive because both parties win in the collaboration process. This is mainly because communication satisfies and strengthens relationships. Reference Roussel, L. (2013). Management and leadership for nurse administrators. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning. Hanson, S. M. H., Gedaly-Duff, V., & Kaakinen, J. R. (2010). Family health care nursing: Theory, practice, and research. Philadelphia: F.A. Davis. Maxfield, M., & Parker, M. (2012). Placement learning in medical nursing: A guide for students in practice. Edinburgh: Bailliere Tindall/Elsevier Ltd. Eleanor M. E. (2013). Effective Leadership and Management in Nursing 8th Edition. Pearson Publishing [Cape Town: Juta. Read More