Abstract
For any company to realize its mission and goals, it is imperative that the company adopt a well-organized performance management procedure. Such procedures comprise four major elements, that, when designed with an emphasis on client satisfaction will encourage the achievement of the organization’s goals on consumer benefits. Furthermore, such programs will increase the output both at an administrative and personal echelon. Concurrently, these four components will not yield any significant performance improvements if considered, designed, and redesigned each on its own thus they must be examined as a unit.
The first component is the set of guidelines for consumer benefits alongside personal and group goals. For the achievement of this element, it is paramount that the client or consumer is identified then research be done to validate their likes and dislikes before coming up with the guidelines for achieving customer satisfaction. Different methods might be employed in trying to arrive at desired customer attributes. Moreover, the organization should track its goals and decide on the best way it can improve on its basic principles to attain the best feedback using Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
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The second element is the establishment of a measurement system that is not only acceptable to all but also plan to include all stakeholders’ views. The structure put in place should be able to quantify the outcome measures, process measures, identify the work process, and measure client dissatisfaction. Feedback is the third element of a performance management procedure. From the feedback it should be possible for employees to assess themselves and to do this; they need to receive responses immediately when everything is still fresh on their minds. For the effectiveness of the organization, feedback should be given in such ways that it is positively accepted and should be from reliable sources.
The last element is the recognition and consequent rewarding of employees either with monetary or non-monetary rewards. As much as it is relevant that the implementation of these elements in the performance management strategies be resolved; the results would take time to be noticeable. Furthermore, the procedures are not tailor-made for all organizations; therefore it is a trial and error method to find out what works best for individual organizations.
2. Organizational Management Proposal for Quality and Performance Plan
Mission Statement of Fairbanks Memorial Hospital
People First. Community Focused. Excellence Every Time.
c. Purpose of the Organizational Management for Quality and Performance Plan
Efficient execution of the organization’s goals is vital to companies for the provision of safe and quality healthcare. Therefore, the proposal aims at helping the management at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital (FMH) to align their workers, assets, and structures to work towards the achievement of its goals and objectives (Bresnen et al., 2017). As much as the hospital has been getting better reviews and upgrades, there is still room for improvements. The turnabout from the previous grade C in 2015 to the current grade B, is not satisfactory, the hospital should strive to get grade A. The hospital has a good performance in such measures as no dangerous objects are left in the patient’s body and also no air or bubbles are left in their blood.
There are areas for improvement in the provision of quality healthcare such as cases where patients undergoing treatment through tubes get infections in the blood. The hospital needs to reduce the number of these cases which are more than the recommended figures for a hospital of its capacity. The reduction of these cases will help the hospital realize its mission. Another area to be addressed is the number of serious injuries or deaths arising from patient falls (Chukmaitov et al., 2015). Moreover, infections in the urinary tract are also higher than the expected number, a reason for the administration to align its workforce towards the eradication of such infections.
Other areas that the administration needs to focus on are the safe medication administration, where patients are not given the correct dosage or medication. This issue is a trivial matter that can be achieved through the nurses ensuring that the patients put on the right ID bracelet that helps the patient receive the right dose through the Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA) ( Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2018) . Moreover, patients need the attention of intensivists who can understand them better while in the intensive care unit. The condition is unspeakable, as the ICU lacks specially trained doctors to care for them (Bresnen et al., 2017). Since the hospital has an active leadership capable of preventing medical errors, it is, therefore, necessary that this proposal guide them in how best to achieve excellence in its mission.
d. An effective Organizational management proposal
1. Setting Goals
Following the improvement of its services that warranted an upgrade from grade C to grade B, it is evident that the hospital has identified its clientele hence working towards customer satisfaction ( Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2018) . Therefore, it is relevant that the administration should strive to set and update consumer benefit goals and guidelines that are based on research data from not only the individual stage but also departmental and organizational stages (Chukmaitov et al., 2015). A simple act like asking the patients what they want is critical as part of the process of setting the goals and customer service standards.
Several methods can be employed in arriving at customer satisfaction and subsequent goals. Techniques such as one-on-one interviews conducted with significant clients can not only give the hospital a good reputation but also builds confidence in the customers as well as bridging the gap between the physicians and the patients (Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2018). Another method can be through the polling of front-line workers that is also crucial as these workers often come into contact with the patients and hear their complaints every time. Furthermore, it is easier for these frontline service employees to relate with the patients and collect critical information that could help in the improvement of the services rendered.
Questionnaires could also be used effectively to allow the patients to comment on the improvements that are relevant for the provision of safe and quality healthcare. Focus groups can also be instrumental in providing feedback on the services offered within the institution and the areas to improve (Chukmaitov et al., 2015). Therefore, the administration should identify focus groups within Alaska and invite them for discussions on the improvement of the medical services at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. For the hospital administration to get a meaningful set of features desirable to the patients, a variety of the outlined methods should be used. Immediately the qualities are established, FMH should use KPI to measure the present performance versus the performances preferred by patients.
2. Establish a measurement system.
It is essential to ensure that the following steps are taken into consideration in the process of establishing an elaborate measurement system. First and foremost is the identification of goals that are meant to be measured. It’s not all goals that should be regulated but specific ones that are critical and aligned towards the achievement of the hospital's mission statement (Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2018). The development of performance indicators should come second as these indicators will help in the measurement of services and products as well as measuring the results obtained through the process of setting the goals. Ideally, employees should be involved in the process, and several measures should be used to avoid inaccurate results from a single input.
The system set should make room for changes and provide feedback that advances improvements in the performance. The administrators should again analyze data collected continually but refrain from impromptu decisions as the process takes time for positive results to be realized (Scott et al., 2018). During the implementation, the measures put in place should focus on details such as customers view on a service or product, the complaints, recommendations, awards, and compliments from the patients. Moreover, the cycle time, wasted supplies or time, and the error rate are critical areas within the process measures to be observed.
Post-incident surveys are very useful in getting feedback from patients about their experiences at the health institution. It is imperative that these surveys be conducted by channel to ensure accurate feedback is received. The administration should work on following interactions between the patients and the staff at different levels of the institution (Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2018). Interactions between patients and staff can be to provide indicators of client dissatisfaction. Furthermore, asking patients questions relating to service provision and staff skills is another sure way of establishing a good measurement system through post-incident surveys. Questions can be requested either through verbal or oral means or through questionnaires that can focus on aspects such as completeness of solution provided, the time taken to resolve or respond to situations or even their satisfaction rate based on the services they have received.
Establishment of a good measurement system can also be achieved through customer experience. Getting to know from the customers if they found the services they wanted and if they have any suggestions to make. Suggestions can be collected through active engagement of the client’s in the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital’s website and create a community experience that they can be shared. Similarly, relationship surveys can be used as a tool for establishing a measurement system. The institution should set surveys that can be conducted annually, bi-annually, or quarterly. The polls can ask questions that focus on the value received, overall support experience, or client satisfaction concerning the hospital’s service or product.
3. Providing adequate, timely feedback.
In collecting the feedback, it is necessary for the employees to be familiar with what is expected of them. This familiarization will help them know what practices are correct and which they should abandon. Furthermore, making the feedback specific helps the staff to advise their colleagues when they notice those conducting unsafe practices. Likewise, the team can create a new culture of reporting others who are not in-line with the hospital's mission statement (Scott et al., 2018). Improvement of staff employees can be achieved best when the staffs receive prompt feedback on their actions. Anyway, it is easier for the managers to correct an error that has just happened since it has more massive consequences than when fixed at a later time when the correction carries less impact.
Managers should be trained on the best way to give out feedback to the lower ranking staff without the lower feeling inferior or less important ( Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2018) . The feedback should create an atmosphere of teamwork and inspire the workers to use safe practices while attending to patients and should not feel criticized by the response (Tsai et al., 2015). Care should be taken on the reactions as some of the sources are not reliable. Unreliable sources can lead to the institution making wrong and inaccurate decisions or strategies that might be expensive in the long run. Fairbank Memorial administrators should consider using the following sources which are stable in providing accurate feedback on the performance of staff at the institution.
Customers can be a good source of positive responses. The staff can also provide accurate responses based on the performances at the institution. Workers like managers, team leaders, front-line staff or supervisors should not be taken for granted as they could provide detailed data necessary for quality improvement (Scott et al., 2018). While collecting data to be used in evaluating the performance of the institution, subordinate staff should not be left out of the process. However, the exercise should not be done as a matter of formality but different techniques such as the use of questionnaires or from client experience tales retold by the patients.
4. Rewarding and recognizing desired performance.
Several people have debated on the best method to reward employees for motivational purposes. The debate is whether the employees should be awarded monetary on non- financial rewards. The truth of the matter is that economic benefits motivate the employees to push beyond limits to achieve set standards, but the impact of such deeds is typically lived in the short term (Tsai et al., 2015). Therefore, it comes as a recommendation for managers to award their employees non- monetary benefits since the workers do not put a lot of pressure on them to achieve set goals. They work to identify creative ways in which to accomplish the organization’s goals and objectives.
It is, therefore, important that the management at Fairbank Memorial Hospital find ways to motivate their members who perform well by using non-monetary strategies such as putting their names on the notice boards or website (Van Rossum et al., 2016). Departments that have more positive responses should also be acknowledged by using the same tactics or even taking them for a weekend outing which will further help in the staff bonding.
3. Conclusion
Fair bank Memorial Hospital is working towards the realization of its mission and goals as indicated by the ratings it got that upraised it to grade B. Hence, it is essential that the company adopt a well-organized performance management procedure that will raise its standards further to grade A. The procedure should comprise significant elements, that, when designed with an emphasis on client satisfaction will encourage the achievement of the organization’s goals on consumer benefits. Such programs will increase the output both at administrative and personal echelon. Concurrently, the elements will not yield any significant performance improvements if considered, designed, and redesigned each on its own but must be examined as a unit.
Therefore, it should be noted that the implementation of the strategies takes time, and the results might not be visible immediately; therefore, the managers should be patient. Hence, it is advisable for the management team to develop a work culture where the staff will be obliged to be adopting safe practices throughout their time in service delivery. This culture should involve reporting members that are not using safe practice in dealing with the patients. With these measures adhered to, reliable and quality care will be achieved thus an improvement of healthcare through organizational management on the quality and performance.
References
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Chukmaitov, A., Harless, D. W., Bazzoli, G. J., Carretta, H. J., & Siangphoe, U. (2015). Delivery system characteristics and their association with quality and costs of care: Implications for accountable care organizations. Health care management review , 40 (2), 92-103.
Ginter, P. M., Duncan, W. J., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The strategic management of health care organizations . John Wiley & Sons.
Scott, T., Mannion, R., Davies, H., & Marshall, M. (2018). Healthcare performance and organisational culture . CRC Press.
Tsai, T. C., Jha, A. K., Gawande, A. A., Huckman, R. S., Bloom, N., & Sadun, R. (2015). Hospital board and management practices are strongly related to hospital performance on clinical quality metrics. Health Affairs , 34 (8), 1304-1311.
Van Rossum, L., Aij, K. H., Simons, F. E., van der Eng, N., & ten Have, W. D. (2016). Lean healthcare from a change management perspective: The role of leadership and workforce flexibility in an operating theatre. Journal of health organization and management , 30 (3), 475-493.
