Essay Sample on Developing a Shared Vision in a Healthcare Institution

Shared vision development in healthcare management calls for collective determination and commitment to goals to accomplish a solution to various issues in healthcare. It is imperative to identify the challenges in the healthcare sector and share a vision toward a common goal. It will require a clear destination into the desired future, a precise purpose and values describing operations on a day-by-day basis in pursuit of the vision. This research proposal illustrates two issues faced in health care management and their impact on the department of ancillary services. This essay also discusses how improved communication, collaboration, and teamwork can improve conditions in this department and identification of two examples of techniques found to foster inclusion and improvement of communication and collaboration.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Identification of Two Staff Issues Facing the Organization

Shortage of staff and poor job satisfaction rates resulting in turnover are examples of issues facing this healthcare organization. Different dangers incorporate maximized non-emergent care at emergency rooms normally by insured patients but with no access to primary healthcare services. They wait for longer time for general surgery and other specialized healthcare services, and this leads to ailment development and a consequential increase in healthcare costs. Objectives for tending to patients concentrate on reducing the shortage and the effect it will have on the delivery of healthcare. Among the causes of the shortage of healthcare providers is aging leading to retirement. The increasing trend of the shortage is due to rising demand for healthcare services, and employment of health care providers that do not keep up with the rising demand.

Poor job satisfaction rates resulting in a high turnover of staff members quitting their jobs is a major problem affecting the performance and profitability of this healthcare organization. High self-retrenchment rates of nursing assistants in long-term care facilities lead to poor quality of healthcare services as well as a reduced quality of life for nursing home occupants (Committee on the Work Environment for Nurses and Patient Safety, 2004). This issue can be addressed by improving job satisfaction. The factors directly contributing to the occurrence of this issue include the inability of the organization to pay high wages and poor staffing ratios in various departments of the institution. Essentially, the lack of job satisfaction has been identified as the primary factor that has made the nursing staff to quit their employment.

Impact of the Issues on the Ancillary Department

These two challenges have had a great impact on the department of ancillary services in categories such as therapeutic, diagnostic and custodial. For instance, the shortage of staff in the Department of ancillary services have led to the worsening of the condition of some of the patients being treated in this medical department. There has also been a shortage of specialized staff offering therapeutic services such as physical rehabilitation and occupation therapy. In addition, the number of qualified medical practitioners dealing with chiropractic and massage services, and speech therapy has also declined. The large decline in the numbers of these medical practitioners has hampered the adequate provision of such quality specialized medical services to patients in this healthcare department.

The issue of nursing turnover as a result of poor job satisfaction rates in this department has resulted in the low quality of patient care provision, loss of patients, maximized contingent staff costs and raised nurses expenses. There has also been an increase in unexpected staffing costs and high accident rates in patient handling as well as increased staff absenteeism rates. The raised unforeseen staff costs are due to reliance on contract attendants to overcome staff deficiencies brought about by large amounts of medical caretaker absenteeism. Staff deficiencies caused by nursing turnover are linked to a huge reduction in the general nature of patient consideration. For instance, patients stay for long hours inside the doctor's facilities.

Description of How Improved Communication, Collaboration, and Teamwork Can Improve the Conditions in the Ancillary Service Department

Improved communication can improve conditions in the ancillary services department in various ways. Healthcare providers have an obligation to enhance correspondence as an essential component of professional practice. This is because past medical research demonstrates that ineffective communication is a major cause of medical errors and patient mischief. Ineffective communication between ancillary services providers may be due to intimidation a root cause of medication error. Communication problems fall into two primary classes. They include communications that were too late to be effective and failure to communicate with all the applicable medical team members. Ultimately, good communication and professional relationship between all staff members in the ancillary department will lead to more positive patient results such as lower mortality rates, higher fulfillment rates, and lower readmission rates.

Viable interpersonal communication between the healthcare providers and patients is a standout amongst the most effective components for enhancing customer fulfillment, consistency and wellbeing results. This is because positive health outcomes are associated with effective communication between the patients and healthcare providers (Blackstone, 2015). Patient fulfillment, compliance with therapeutic regimens and changes in physiological markers like blood glucose levels are connected to a good doctor-patient communication. Better communication prompts a stretched out discourse, which empowers patients to unveil information about their health issues. This enables the healthcare staff to make accurate diagnoses. It also boosts healthcare education and counseling, causing proper treatment administrations and patient compliance. All these are essential factors that will be attained if good communication and teamwork are adhered to in the ancillary department.

Effective teamwork in healthcare services delivery within the ancillary department will have a prompt and positive effects on patient safety. For instance, the medical practitioners response time to patients concerns will improve. The positive effects that will be attained will include the improvement of the quality of services offered to the patients and accurate diagnosis of ailments. Under the patients safety, unnecessary deaths reported in the ancillary department will reduce. Such deaths may result due to long wait-time before patients are serviced. The significance of teamwork in medical facilities today has heightened due to the increased rates of intricacy and specialization of healthcare services. This is due to changes in the patients health concerns such as the emergent trend in the rising rate of chronic diseases.

Two Techniques that Can Be Recommended to Foster Inclusion and Improve Communication and Collaboration

The first strategy will be to communicate the ancillary departments expectations to all the staff members working in the department (Graves, 2012). A manager should make sure that every staff in the department will understand that collaboration is the basic standard in professional job performance. All the staff members will have defined roles as well as responsibilities with their team. The second strategy that will be used will be to build cohesion. This will involve incorporating every member of the team in the decision-making process. This strategy will also involve communicating present flows of work to all the staff members to evade the duplication of efforts. A manager will also initiate teambuilding initiatives where each member of a team in the ancillary department will share their plans for each day. This will keep all members of the groups in the department on the same page and enable them to direct their efforts in the desired manner.

Conclusion

In conclusion, developing a shared vision with the chief aim of achieving improved health care results requires concerted efforts by all stakeholders in a healthcare institution. The deficiency of medical care staff and poor job satisfaction rates leading to turnover are some of the issues that can be realized in the Department of ancillary services in a healthcare facility. They can be solved by fostering improved communication, partnerships, and teamwork among the staff members in this department. The communication of the departments expectations and building cohesion are vital methods that can be utilized to foster incorporation and improvement of communication and collaboration in the department.

References

Committee on Advancing Pain Research, C. a. (2011). Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Committee on the Work Environment for Nurses and Patient Safety, B. o. (2004). Keeping Patients Safe: Transforming the Work Environment of Nurses. Washington DC: National Academies Press.

Graves, H. G. (2012). A Strategic Guide to Technical Communication - Second Edition (US). Toronto: Broadview Press.

Sarah W. Blackstone, D. R. (2015). Patient-Provider Communication: Roles for Speech-Language Pathologists and Other Health Care Professionals. Sandiego: Plural Publishing.