The healthcare consists of many departments working together to ensure the safety of human life. The ancillary care services are mainly divided into three main parts namely; diagnostic, therapeutic, and custodial. The diagnostic sector mainly deals with the laboratory test, imaging genetic test among others. Therapeutic services include rehabilitation, physical and occupational therapy that are important for human safety. In custodial care, everything from hospice care and long-term acute care to nursing facilities and urgent care activities are facilitated. These sectors are highly contributing to the growth of health information with a coverage of more than thirty percent of the whole medical care spending. It is common that physician working in any sector face some challenges depending on the working conditions they are subjected to every day. The ancillary care is one of the areas faced by some of these problems in an attempt to ensure formal quality analysis and process improvement.
Common Challenges in the Ancillary Sector
There is a shortage of nurses and physicians in the health department . Despite the registry of large numbers of health officers by the Nursing solutions, there is still a growing demand for more health service providers. The demand is as a result of an increase in the number of aged persons. Past studies show that the aged people require more health attention as compared to the younger generation. Additionally, with the increased health awareness by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), there is increased concerns in line with health facilities (Manser, 2014). Individuals are motivated to confirm their health status often, request medical checkups, consult on diets among other essential activities. As a result of these, the ancillary department is facing a shortage of workers which we are striving towards putting under control.
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Secondly, there are some reports from the patients on poor Job satisfaction. The increased rate of this is resulting in Turnover. There is a replacement of a large number of workers as compared to the total health officer in the department. The reason for this is the impending health officer’s shortage. Based on this, the idea of employee retention is more than more or other benefits. Being satisfied with the place of work is what we need to focus on than anything else. The nursing associations have reported on the deteriorating quality of work-life for nurses. Out of these the department will deploy some changes and enforce on the dispositional theory for job satisfaction (Robbins & Davidhizar, 2012).
Effects of the Challenges
The shortage of workers has impacted our department in different ways. Due to these, the available workers are being forced to work for more hours than required. As per the rules of the department, every officer in the rank of a nurse should work seven hours a day, laboratory attendants seven hours per day, dentists six hours and doctors five hours per day. Workers working for more hours are more likely to make mistakes due to fatigue, injury, and job dissatisfaction (Mitchell & Sass 2015). From this, the patient's care is affected with most of them suffering from preventable complications due to medical errors. There is also a lot of crowding by patients as they wait to be attended. There are long queues everyday with even some patients going home without getting satisfied. As a result of this, we are afraid not to spoil our reputation as well as loss of customers. The issue of poor job satisfaction has brought about the poor quality of work, lack of creativity, lack of pride in one's profession and workplace and decreased sense of teamwork. As a result of this, we are working on funding options, higher wages, increased minorities, foreign nurses and improved image.
Improved Communication, Collaboration and Teamwork
Some three primary factors have been pointed out as areas of improvement in the ancillary department. They include communication, collaboration, and cooperation. Lack of communication creates instances where medical errors can occur. In the department, critical information must be accurately communicated to control cases of severe injury or unexpected patient death due to poor communication. Communication works hand-in-hand with collaboration where sharing of thoughts, opinions and working together to solve a certain issue is made effective. The more we are willing to work as a team, the more benefits in line with the patient satisfaction we are likely to realize. The active teams are characterized by trust and respect for one another when at work (Manser, 2014). Other benefits include mutual support, the accomplishment of job activities on time, increased efficiency and the ability to focus different minds on the same problem. Based on the Sexton study analysis, there are some techniques that we need to deploy to ensure we work together as a team. One of them is where each is expected to lead by example. When it comes to issues of time management, patients ethics, and uniforms each person is expected to do the right thing even when under minimal supervision. This will be easy for our new worker to emulate us creating a good management culture. On the other hand, it is also essential for us to work with a common goal. We need to communicate, establish-department goals and build trust amongst ourselves.
There are very many issues we need to consider to be able to change the current environment we are working on to a better place. The department heads are responsible for ensuring effective changes are made in line with worker's shortage and facilities. However, the employees also go a role to play in teamwork, collaboration and improvement of communication. We are aiming at creating a culture of respect where listening, helping, encouraging and demonstrating empathy will be part of us. The ancillary department is one of the sectors that requires attention to ensure patients satisfaction. Modern forms of technology to ensure communication and efficient working will also be put in place.
References
Manser, T. (2014). Teamwork and patient safety in dynamic domains of healthcare: a review of the literature. Journal of Health Economics , 53 (2), 143-151
Mitchell, J. M., & Sass, T. R. (2015). Physician ownership of ancillary services: indirect demand inducement or quality assurance? Journal of Health Economics , 14 (3), 263-289.
Robbins, B., & Davidhizar, R. (2012). Transformational leadership in health care today. The Health Care Manager , 26 (3), 234-239.
