Children’s Hospital Of Oakland

The hospital facts 

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland is a children’s health facility located in Oakland California that focuses on offering healthcare services to children and also other people in the community in need of medical attention. The healthcare facility is operates in partnership with the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital San Francisco and the American College of Surgeons which are designed to handle pediatric trauma center. The hospital focuses also focuses on getting involved in the research and treatment for a variety of children’s health problems which include pediatric obesity, sickle cell disease, cystic fibrosis, and AIDS/HIV. Children’s Hospital of Oakland success is attributable to its leadership skills which focus on collaboration and improving employee experience to increase the availability of resources, facilities, and human service capable of offering a successful treatment process in the organization. The success of the hospital is reflected through the winning of the 2018 Top Hospital’s award which mentioned the hospital as one of the top hospitals in the country (Krigel, 2018). Children’s Hospital Oakland was one of the two healthcare facilities that won the prize and the only hospital in North California. In an attempt of revealing the secrets behind the success of the hospital, the paper focuses on interviewing Bertram Lubin who has been the Associate Dean of Children’s health in the healthcare facility since the year 2009. 

Interviewee Experience 

The first interview question regarded the explanation related to personal experience and achievements by working as a clinical officer in Children’s Hospital of Oakland or other healthcare facilities as well as achievements in such positions (Fibuch, 2011). Lubin is an experienced medical officer who has been in the profession since the year 1973 thus making him a reliable source of information about the operation of the Children’s Hospital Oakland. He worked in his first role as a leader in the year 1998 where he became the director of medical research. Under his leadership, the healthcare facility experienced an expansion in its basic, clinical, and translational research activities. For example, the operation focused on creating activities and programs that were capable of transforming the small research facilities to some high levels of research activities. Before joining the Children’s health care facility Oakland, Lubin had worked in several other national institutions in the healthcare department. Operating as the president and chief executive officer in the Children’s Hospital of Oakland makes Lubin a leader and a source of information that contributed to the success of the hospital in the society. 

Interdepartmental Interaction 

The other question of the interview regarded the efforts and mechanisms that the organization usually applies to ensure they serve the interests of the community. Good leadership in an organization especially in the healthcare sector puts the priority of the individuals first and encourages people to develop seeks services from that particular healthcare institution (Fibuch, 2011). The objective of this question is to understand the mechanisms that children’s hospital of Oakland applies in demonstrating and creating an awareness of the products that they offer to the community, patients, and the government. Successful creation of awareness about the existence of the services depends on the ability for an organization to collaborate with other hospitals, physicians, and other businesses such as insurance companies to improve their services and efforts in catering for the needs of clients and employees. 

In an attempt of achieving the company’s growth and ensuring that there is a provision of the right services to the customers, Dr. Lubin reveales that it has become the interest the leaders and the management of the hospital to partner with other organizations either in the healthcare industry or insurance cover support firms. For instance, Children’s Hospital of Oakland has engaged in a partnership with Children’s hospital and research center Oakland to push for the need of conducting research and identifying new mechanisms that can improve establishment and offering of healthcare services to the clients (de Freitas et al., 2018). Lubin made it clear that this collaboration has been helpful in allocating resources and identifying the emergence of strange kind of diseases that affect children thus identifying mechanisms for addressing the challenges. Collaboration with insurance companies has been helpful in protecting both the patients and physicians from adverse effects of activities such as natural disaster which may adversely affect the performance of the organization especially in situations where a natural disaster strikes the healthcare facility. Employee insurance is essential and protects workers from prosecutions that may affect employees due to malpractice treatment approaches. With the absence of such insurance practices, it would be costly for physicians to pay for all charges under Tort law and it may demoralize the efforts by the employees to perform to the expectations. 

Aligning Organizational Goals from Top to Bottom 

The other question relates to the efforts that the leadership at the children’s hospital of Oakland focuses on meeting the healthcare facility’s objectives. In this case, there is an examination of the mechanisms applied by the leadership to encourage teamwork and promote commitment towards common goals (De Smet et al., 2012). This interview guiding question seeks to explore different aspects of leadership techniques because it explores the commitment that the organization usually put in place to bring employees onboard and commitment for different departments in emphasizing on working towards a common goal. In responding to this question, Lubin emphasized that honoring the organization’s mission has been the driving engine for workers and bringing physicians into the interest for meeting a common goal. The mission and vision of Children’s Hospital of Oakland are the guiding tools which the organization serves the interests of the clients. Though the mission statement of the healthcare facility is flexible and can change depending on situations, the training program encourages employees to share their opinions into consideration the effects that such changes would cause to the organization. Lubin recognizes the importance of providing healthcare children who are the most vulnerable groups thus emphasizing on the need for hiring highly qualified and committed employees. However, the mission statement becomes the guiding tool for ensuring that employees operate following a particular goal and dedicated to achieving a particular objective. 

Commitment to putting employees onboard to serve in accordance with the organizational mission and vision statements, collaboration across departments is a fundamental factor that promotes efficiency in service delivery. As a result, Lubin revealed that children’s Hospital of Oakland management team promotes collaboration and sharing of ideas across departments to minimize most of the challenges that may be facing the hospital meeting targets for the organization. Lubin highlighted that balanced leadership across departments with unified facility model is central to the integration operations strategy of the healthcare facility which tries to minimize the adverse effects that may be facing the organization (McLaughlin et al., 2019). Collaborating with physician advisory group ensures that there is a presentation of advice that are needed in supporting workers to develop the skills needed in promoting workers to achieve the needed skills that are beneficial in providing employees with techniques that are needed in handling their work. Collaboration promotes the efficient allocation of resources such as human capital and healthcare facilities without disagreements which may be challenging to offering efficient services to the patients. Without partnership and efficient communication, children’s hospital Oakland would not have any distinguishing feature from the challenges experienced by other organizations such as a declined number of inpatients and outpatients as well as facing competition from other healthcare facilities in the region. 

Challenges and Intervention Mechanisms Experienced at Children’s Hospital of Oakland 

In this section, the guiding interview question required Dr. Lubin to highlight some of the challenges and issues faced by the healthcare facility and the intervention mechanisms they apply to reduce the adverse effects. The question covered diverse areas of problems such as those originating from within the healthcare facility, external forces, as wells technological problems and the intervention mechanisms that the leadership team put in place to address such problems (Hernandez, 2011). Lubin opened up and discussed several issues that undermined the effort of the leadership team in ensuring that they serve the interests of the community as well as that of the government. Resource allocation has been a challenging issue in the organization because being a public hospital, there is congestion in the healthcare facility meaning that the demand for services from the hospital especially for the children is high and there is a need for allocating adequate resources to exploit the fu capacity of the hospital. For example, there is a significant gap between the number of healthcare providers and the patients in need of the services and those requiring the services from the healthcare facility. 

Inadequate resources mean that one clinical physician has to attend to approximately two-three patients because of the inadequate personnel. High traffic of patients occurs because it is a public hospital that charges less for services offered to the clients. Despite the existence of resource challenges, the organization leadership team and the board of governors of the healthcare facility push for the need for increasing access to adequate funds for addressing such challenges. In effect, children’s hospital of Oakland remains the best public hospital in the region offering services to more than half of the children in California. Though there exist other public and private hospitals in the area, Children’s Hospital of Oakland is publicly funded and the government remains committed to accessing universal healthcare for all patients. 

Dr. Lubin also identified some challenges resulting from a conflict between employees’ ideas and those made by the organizational stakeholders. The issues originate from the fact that there is little involvement of workers in making decisions that affect the working environment for the physicians (De Smet et al., 2012). In most cases, orders in the healthcare facility come from top to bottom and physicians have to adhere to such changes. However, sometimes the leadership team experience pressure from the union of nurses and doctors fighting some changes that may have caused adverse effects on the operation of the employees. Lubin revealed that despite the four years of collaboration and partnership with Benioff Children’s Hospital and the Children’s hospital research centre of Oakland, the physicians have started complaining about the move suggesting that the partnership had adverse effects on the operations of the healthcare facility especially on the side of employees (de Freitas et al., 2018). Most of the physicians claim that since the merger, the number of patients seeking services from the Children’s Hospital of Oakland has declined significantly resulting to decline flow of funds as well as undermining their effort to practice their career. This undermined their effort to be promoted as well as declining the effort for securing good paying jobs in the future. The anger by physicians caused chaos in the healthcare facility and it needed efficient intervention mechanisms to minimize the adverse effects such relocating of patients to other healthcare facilities. 

Lubin argued that reducing this chaos required the intervention of mechanism that involved leaders from across the departments and the physicians to suggest the viable solution mechanisms for addressing the matter. In this case, the problem was employee centered and the leaders had to receive and evaluate the provided suggestions before making decisions about the intervention of the problem. In effect, the meeting reached an agreement that focused on growing and reinvesting in critical programs that focus on ensuring there is an establishment of facilities capable of increasing the number of patients seeking services from the hospital. The program focuses on creating several sub-branches in different regions where the majority of patients can be reallocated as well as employing other physicians to increase the sources of funds. Since the establishment of the new Children’s Hospital of Oakland has increased the number of patients seeking services form the healthcare facility by approximately 40% in the previous year (de Freitas et al., 2018). This appeared to be an effective move because it has resulted in the decline of the chaos and the leadership team has been witnessing positive comments from the employees in the organization. For example, the organization is focused on the need for expanding its operations in the East Bay that is needed to ensure there is sufficient flow of funds capable of catering for the needs of the organization as well as that of the people in the community. 

The interview also involved a question related to circumstances under which the leadership team had to deal with problems affecting one physician or a group of few workers operating in the healthcare system. Lubin argued that conflict either among the workers or leaders and employees is a common aspect in children’s Hospital of Oakland just like in any other organization. In situations where conflict arises, it becomes the interest of the leadership team to intervene and try to understand the source issue thus providing an intervention mechanism to address the challenge (Carden et al., 2019). For example, there is an occasion that occurred in the hospital where one of the nurses used to talk and use abusive language by seeing other employees as being incompetent in work. The other physicians developed an adverse attitude towards the working of people in this sector compelling workers even the newly hired employees to feel irritated with the physician’s behavior. In effect, it became the interest of the leading team to address the issue because it could have adverse effects on service delivery to patients. In the first move, Lubin revealed that he had to organize for a meeting with the claimed physician to discuss the matter before it could be addressed in an organized meeting with other nurses. Later they organized for a meeting with an objective of restoring the good relationship among workers to improve service delivery. 

Regarding a question related to circumstance under which Lubin had to participate in the firing of employees, Lubin revealed that some mistakes by clinicians cannot be compromised and they need immediate action with an objective of avoiding cases of damaging organizational reputation. For example, sometimes there are cases facing some of the organization’s employees such as prosecutions for engaging in treatment malpractice under the tort law. In such cases, it becomes a burden for the leaders because they have to make decisions in favor of the commitment of the organization in offering healthcare services rather than focusing on saving the patient. If a clinical officer or an associated dean tries t save the physician, there is always a confrontation from the court and the community. While working as an associate dean for Children’s Hospital of Oakland, one of the physicians was an accused of being incompetent in carrying out surgery as he left the scalpel inside the would thus causing severe and persistent pain. This issue remained evidence-based so as an associate dean and other leaders had nothing to do rather than accepting the fine that the court ruled for such unethical action of the physician. 

Employee Relationship at Children’s Hospital in Oakland 

The interview questions discussed in this section focuses on asking Lubin the interviewee to highlight some of the approaches they use to ensure that there is an establishment of good employee relations. As a result, the section covers the majority of the relationship between the clinicians (Hernandez, 2011). This section covers the recruiting process, employee performance management, and appraisal as well as the evaluation and motivation employed by the healthcare facility. The first question related to the mechanisms that the organization ensures that there is focused on ensuring that the organization is keeping up with continual advances in medical technology. In this case, Lubin revealed that the commitment of the organization in ensuring successful implementation of technology in the organization begins from the focus of the hiring mechanisms that focus on selecting talented and innovative physicians (Merrell & Watson, 2012). In this case, the Children’s Hospital of Oakland focuses on hiring and recruiting physicians with interests and abilities in supporting the organization to achieve its set objectives. For example, experience and qualifications are the first considerations when decreasing the kind of employees to be hired in the organization. 

Hiring occurs concurrently with a training program that aims at fitting the workers to deliver services to the expectation of a healthcare facility. In this case, the children’s hospital of Oakland focuses on ensuring that physicians have a flexible work schedule to have access to adequate time for engaging in sponsored education to further their abilities and skills in the healthcare system (Carden et al., 2019). The leadership team remains focused on improving the skills of the employees by taking the clinician to benchmark in other developed healthcare facilities to learn about the activities they can apply in improving techniques for offering treatment to workers. The organization leadership team understands that there are different types of diseases that may affect the target population and it may be challenging to ensure successful treatment by the physicians. However, the organization invests heavily on research designed to identify any new disease or illness cropping in the region and the possible intervention mechanisms. As a result, focus on research becomes a successful way of ensuring that there is an identification of any new technology needed in establishing the expected service delivery in the Children’s Hospital of Oakland. 

Employee motivation is one of the essential factors that determine the level of commitment shown by workers. As a result, the interview question related to this point required Dr. Lubin to give some physician motivation program designed to come up with strategies designed to increase the ability of workers to feel encouraged to perform their duties. The answers revealed that employee promotional program has been one of the most successful approaches for ensuring workers remain to have a positive attitude towards the work (McLaughlin et al., 2019). For example, maintaining a positive attitude towards work by evaluating employees and offering rewards that promote employee performance is a fundamental method used to encourage workers to deliver to the expectations of patients. There is also promoting doctors from within the company in case of retirement rather than hiring from other healthcare facilities in the region or from different areas. 

Children’s Hospital of Oakland remains the best hospital in the region offering treatment services to both children and adults in the region. The hospital was ranked the second best organization in North America and a leading healthcare facility in California. The interview with Dr, Lubin the clinical officer in Children’s Hospital of Oakland, it is evident that the organization’s commitment to meeting its mission and bringing workers onboard to remain in line with healthcare facility’s mission and vision statements. Like any other healthcare facility, Children’s Hospital of Oakland faces some challenges within the organization as well as between workers and leaders. However, the management team has been in a position to handle such issues minimizing the drawbacks associated with the organization’s performance. 

References 

Carden, M. A., Brousseau, D. C., Ahmad, F. A., Bennett, J., Bhatt, S., Bogie, A., ... & Cohen, D. (2019). Normal Saline Bolus Use in Pediatric Emergency Departments is Associated with Worse Pain Control in Children with Sickle Cell Anemia and Vaso-occlusive Pain.    American journal of hematology . 

de Freitas, N. R. B., Pereira, N. D., Pessoa, M. S., Galvão, F., Saad, S. T. O., & Zanoni, C. T. (2018). Translation, and interobserver and test–retest reliability of the Brazilian Portuguese version of Children's Hospital Oakland Hip Evaluation Scale for patients with sickle cell disease.    Hematology, Transfusion and Cell Therapy ,    40 (3), 226-232. 

De Smet, A., Lavoie, J., & Hioe, E. S. (2012). Developing better change leaders.    McKinsey Quarterly ,    2 , 98-104. 

Fibuch, E. E. (2011). Failure of Senior Leadership-Is This a Problem in Your Hospital?.    Physician executive ,    37 (2), 46. 

Hernandez, J. S. (2011). Am I demoralizing my staff?-10 questions to ask.    Physician executive ,    37 (3), 60. 

Krigel m., (2018). UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland Named Among Nation’s Premier Hospitals in Annual Quality Survey. Retrieved from: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018/12/412481/ucsf-benioff-childrens-hospital-oakland-named-among-nations-premier-hospitals 

McLaughlin, C., Darcy, D., Park, C., Lane, C. J., Mack, W. J., Bliss, D. W., ... & Jensen, A. R. (2019). Timing of Tracheostomy Placement among Children with Severe Traumatic Brain Injury: A Propensity-Matched Analysis.    The journal of trauma and acute care surgery . 

Merrell, P., & Watson, T. (2012). Effective change management: The simple truth.    Management Services ,    56 (2), 20-23.