All business organizations can be defined as rather multifaceted systems that comprise certain people and/or alliances in which every single person has a different point of view with regards to their individual beliefs, interests, and preferences. There are a lot of risk factors associated with the provision of services in healthcare institutions. For this reason formulation of policies in such organizations is inevitable to help facilitate the institution better by deducting practice variability which could serve as a possible cause for inadequate care for patients and their detriment.
Healthcare policies have a variety of roles. Most importantly, they help perpetuate the process of decision making in healthcare institutions. They also ensure that all professional medicine-related practices are fully adhered to, as well as minimize variation with respect to such practices (Parks, 2013). Policies serve as useful tools for newly introduced personnel within the organization. However, we are going to focus on the role of healthcare policies in decision making within such institutions.
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Decision making in healthcare organizations is majorly the responsibility of the managerial department of the institutions. In order for managers to arrive at the appropriate decisions, they ought to seek detailed and diversified information from various sources within the institution. (Johnson, 2012). This helps provide a variety of options from which they can choose from and ensures that no issue is overlooked or understated.
It is important to note that most health-related decisions are based on probabilities. Therefore, most of the decisions that are made in this field of professionalism are arrived at in uncertain circumstances (Parks, 2013). In many cases, as stated earlier, decision makers are the managers or the individuals of higher authority in the institutions.
However, there are cases where decisions are shared between two parties: patients and the core providers of decisions (Parks, 2013). According to research from several secondary sources, such cases whereby patients are involved in making decisions are made possible by specific policies which provide guidelines and instructions which slot in the patients’ quality of life as well as their own inclinations.
Healthcare policies on decision making have their limitations, and yet we cannot ignore the fact that medical professionals, especially those in managerial positions have all it takes for them to be in a position to make overall decisions with regards to this particular subject matter. However, it is the lives of people they are dealing with and that is why several bodies play a role in formulating policies to be used in healthcare organizations. (Johnson, 2012). The government and the World Health Organization, for instance, have a shared role in making policies of healthcare institutions. These policies help the responsible decision makers in these institutions arrive at their decisions while being aware of the implications stated forth in the documented policies.
In conclusion, we can say that decision-making policies in healthcare organizations are complex as they are majorly inclined on probabilities due to the unpredictability of patients' conditions. It is, however, with the help of the outlined policies that the managerial department of such institutions can they make informed decisions on the issues they face on a daily basis.
References
Hamrock, E., Paige, K., Parks, J., Scheulen, J., & Levin, S. (2013). Discrete Event Simulation for
Healthcare Organizations: A Tool for Decision Making. Journal of Healthcare Management , 58 (2), 110-124. doi:10.1097/00115514-201303000-00007
Johnsons. (2012). Evidence Synthesis in a Decision Modelling Framework. Evidence Synthesis
for Decision Making in Healthcare , 138-150. doi:10.1002/9781119942986.ch7
