Ascension healthcare is one of the largest Catholic and non-profit healthcare in the United States. The organization focuses on offering effective and efficient health services to its clients with an objective of improving people’s welfare in the community. It was formed by mergers of the Barnes Hospital and the Jewish hospital and included the Christian health services in the year 1993 (Engler et al., 2013). In its operation, Ascension healthcare system targets mass market where people have an opportunity to seek healthcare services in the several branches of the system that exists in St. Louis. It ranked as the third largest hospital in the US with several physicians and specialties that take care of patients in the hospital. The hospital has focused on improving outpatient healthcare services because of increased technology in the area especially because of the establishment of invasive surgical services ( Tersigni, 2018). Hospitals in the area draw patients from several areas such as Southern Illinois, central Missouri, and also in regions beyond those regions exposing the healthcare facilities to serve the mass market in the United States.
Population Healthcare Approach
Ascension healthcare approach applies population healthcare approach in delivering services to their clients. This population strategy has a significant impact on the manner in which an organization manages its workers. Though a curative approach is always the best approach for healthcare services, it is evident that a population approach is a better approach to providing effective healthcare services (Engler et al., 2013). The primary objective of applying population strategy in service delivery is to ensure the improvement of a patient’s experience, improving the health of the population, and a reduction of per capita cost of healthcare. This population strategy is applied by Ascension healthcare facility in providing healthcare services to people in the community. The hospital management focuses on ensuring that people in the target market have access to safe, efficient, and affordable treatment.
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Ascension health care facility focuses on applying sustainable health care delivery model which is capable of improving all the welfare of people in a community. In this case, the hospital management focuses on ensuring that they identify the community’s future needs, the current services they offer and the existing gap between the market demand and the services they offer. This information plays an essential role in equipping hospital management body with knowledge of the new areas they need to diversify their services. All the services offered in this hospital are community-based and there is always a consideration of the effects that a particular service will have on the patient and the entire population. For example, the hospital management has evaluated all unmet service and allocates funds in an attempt of meeting the needs of the vulnerable population by combining public subsidies, traditional reimbursement, and private subsidies in the provision of such services ( Silverman et al., 2015) . This approach is beneficial to the community as opposed to the curative model which focuses on providing services differentiated in cost, quality, brand reputation, and patient experience. Since the hospital has 26 regional operating healthcare services, the management team focuses on ensuring that there is a provision of long term and senior living and other community.
Healthcare leadership Issues in Ascension Healthcare Organization
The primary objective of the Ascension leadership is ensuring that there is an establishment of several affordable healthcare services in improving the welfare of people in the community. Despite this commitment in offering these services, it is undeniable that the hospital systems experience several challenges that may prevent the success of the organization. For instance, healthcare rising costs have become an issue in affecting the manner in which the organization implements its services. People in the target market strive to live longer, healthier, and live an enjoyable life ( Tersigni, 2018). Costs and expenditure rise exceeding the affordability by the majority of people in the community. Ascension healthcare organization is a non-profit organization and the rising costs of acquiring such services expose the health care facility to financial issues. In the United States, there is an expectation that the aggregate spending healthcare per person will increase at the rate of 5.8% per year which is 1.3% higher than the rate of growth of the GDP in the region ( Tersigni, 2018). Addressing these financial problems call for the need of ensuring that leaders have capabilities for offering solutions to these challenges. Rising costs of healthcare facilities reduce the affordability of such services leading to inefficient operation in the organization.
There are also challenges related to workforce management in the hospital due to the cultural dynamics of the employees. For example, the Human resource department experiences challenges due to a lack of employee engagement making it difficult to implement teamwork in the organization. There is little implementation of employee engagement practices such as incentives and involvement of workers in making a decision which results in low performance among workers. Though the organization focuses on improving patient experience with the health care facility, it is undeniable that employees such as nurses and physicians in the business do not feel committed to meeting organization goals since they are not directly engaged in the decision-making process ( Tersigni, 2018). There is a significant connection between employee engagement in healthcare facility and level of patients’ satisfaction thus calling for the management team to hire qualified staff and engage in coaching process that is likely to encourage teamwork and commitment to organizations’ goals. Law employee engagement has adverse effects on patients, the community, and the employees as physicians feel less motivated in offering efficient services to the patients thus damaging the organization’s image in the society.
Ethical and legal Issues Found in Ascension Healthcare Organization
Like any other healthcare organization, Ascension healthcare systems experience several legal and ethical issues in their operations. For example, professionals working in this healthcare organization experiences ethical issues related to informed consent. This legal requirement requires that it is the right for patients to be aware of their medical conditions and choose the best alternative that they need to undergo (Tarzian & Force, 2013). This policy requires that professionals should be in a position to provide sufficient and informative information in an understandable manner for the patient to choose the best approach at their interest. Ethical dilemmas occur in situations where there is disagreement between the needs of the patients, patient’s family, and the physician regarding the best alternative for treating a particular disorder. In this case, many professionals in the Ascension healthcare facility confused between the ethics of doing good to the patient or respecting patient’s wishes.
Ascension healthcare organization is a nonprofit organization and they focus on ensuring that they offer services affordable to clients. This goal subjects workers to legal and ethical issues related to the professional boundaries. Professional boundaries approach requires that health care professionals should act in a manner such that they respect patients and they should not engage in unprofessional actions such as receiving gifts that exceed nominal value or involvement in sexual relationships with patients ( Silverman et al., 2015 ). In some cases, patients receive efficient services from nurses and they decide to issue gifts that exceed the value paid for the services to professionals who are in need of money. This decision creates an ethical dilemma to patients in deciding whether to take the gratitude from the patients or not.
Legal and ethical conduct of professionals requires that medical professionals should act in a way such that they do not harm their patients. In this case, professionals are required to get committed to offering efficient and quality services to clients without limitations to save the lives of people in the community (Tarzian & Force, 2013). This ethical behavior matches the objectives of the Ascension hospital system. However, there is always a challenge especially when it comes to striking the balance between offering efficient service and quality service to professionals without adequate resources to meet the payment for services. This problem is common among professionals working in Ascension healthcare facility because of the rising cost for healthcare services.
Suggestions to Minimize Negative Outcomes and Maximize Positive Outcomes for Leaders
Though Ascension organization experiences challenges in employee performance, there is still room for improving professional performance. Leadership issues experienced in the organization originated from the failure of promoting employee engagement which can be improved through the application of three essential strategies. For example, there is a need for facilitating open communication among staff (Joshi et al., 2014). The organization has an employee working in different departments and it becomes challenging to implement an open employee communication. However, keeping all staff up to date minimizes the adverse results associated with employees as there will be sharing of information and encouragement of teamwork. Leaders also need to establish mechanisms for recognizing employees for stronger engagement. In situations where the leaders develop an attitude that recognizes employee engagement with patients, the workers will feel motivated and encouraged to offer services to patients. This approach also creates an opportunity for encourages workers to get connected to others. Employees in a healthcare facility perform duties that carry a heavier weight than people in other organizations (Joshi et al., 2014). As a result, leaders can improve the performance of employees by centralizing essential resources online. This strategy calls for a need of establishing tools and technology capable of streamlining their daily activities.
References
Engler, E. S., Jones, S., & Van de Ven, A. H. (2013). Organizing healthcare for changing markets: the case of Ascension health.
Joshi, M., Ransom, E. R., Nash, D. B., & Ransom, S. B. (Eds.). (2014). The healthcare quality book: vision, strategy, and tools . Chicago: Health Administration Press.
Silverman, B. G., Hanrahan, N., Bharathy, G., Gordon, K., & Johnson, D. (2015). A systems approach to healthcare: agent-based modeling, community mental health, and population well-being. Artificial intelligence in medicine , 63 (2), 61 -71.
Tarzian, A. J., & Force, A. C. C. U. T. (2013). Health care ethics consultation: An update on core competencies and emerging standards from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities’ Core Competencies Update Task Force. The American Journal of Bioethics , 13 (2), 3-13.
Tersigni, A. R. (2018). Healthcare, Disrupt Thyself: How Ascension Makes Changes Today to Thrive Tomorrow. Journal of Healthcare Management , 63 (6), 370-373.
