Strategic assessment of healthcare organization weaknesses and leadership impact

¶ … Health Care Leadership

Over the last several years, a variety of health organizations have been facing a number of different challenges. Part of the reason for this, is because rising costs can have a dramatic impact upon the ability of a hospital to remain open. Evidence of this trend can be seen by looking no further than a study that was conducted by Boston University. They found that between 1980 and 1997 there was a reduction in the total number of available beds nationwide by 660 thousand. The reasons why various facilities were closing were: mainly associated with the high costs and declining profits margins they were experiencing. As a result, researchers determined that there were a number of criterion that help to decide what facilities were most likely to face different challenges in the future to include: for profit, non-teaching and neighborhood hospitals with high minority patients. These different factors are important, because they are showing how they helped contribute to decreases inefficiency (which would have a direct impact on costs and profitability). ("With Hospitals," 2001)

In the case of California Hospital Medical Center, they are facing similar issues to include: they are a for profit, community hospital and they serve large numbers of minorities. This is problematic, because it means that they could be facing a variety of challenges that they will have to deal with in the future. To fully understand what is taking place requires: examining weaknesses and their affects on organizational leadership. Once this occurs, it will provide the greatest insights of: the possible challenges in the future and the root causes of them.

Elaborate and enhance your initial descriptions of the weaknesses identified, assessed and its effect on achieving the goals of the organization pertaining to: Leadership.

There are a number of different weaknesses that have been affecting California Hospital Medical Center to include: a rigid management structure, the inability to embrace new changes, limited amounts of customers, inadequate capital funding / financing programs, fierce competition, high employee turnover, a lack of follow up and poor customer service. These different elements are important, because they are illustrating how they can slowly eat away at the reputation and financial foundation of the facility.

A good example of this can be seen with Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington DC. On the surface, this was supposed to be one of the best hospitals for military medicine. However, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were reporting that the facility had a number of different problems. The most notable include: an uncaring staff, a lack of follow up and poor treatment options for a variety of patients. This is significant, because these different issues would lead directly to the facility's closure in the future. The reason why, is because the various problems have become so severe that they have made it no longer an effective option for treating patients. This situation is relevant, because it is showing how these kinds of challenges could result in a similar kind of fate for California Hospital Medical Center (unless some kind of drastic actions is taken). (Preist, 2007)

The different issues that are affecting the facility are: directly tied to a lack of leadership inside the organization. This is problematic, because the staff members will often look to upper management and supervisors to determine how they should be interacting with patients. When they see that managers do not care, they will exhibit similar kinds of views as part of their job. This is the point that efficiency will decline and costs will increase. Once this occurs, it means that it is only a matter of time until this will lead to an erosion in the profit margins of the organization.

Evidence of this can be seen by looking at the different challenges that have been reported at California Hospital Medical Center to include: high employee turnover, a lack of follow up and poor customer service. These three factors are indications that the there is lack of leadership within the facility. This is troubling, because it means that unless some kind of action is taken this will eat away at the financial foundation of the organization.

As a result, management must give employees reasons to change their attitude. This means that some kind of shake up must take place and a new culture must be introduced. The basic approach will be to give employees a reason to want to embrace these changes voluntarily. If this kind of a strategy can be utilized, it will help to ensure that any kind of transformations will last. This is the key in being able to: address those issues that could be affecting the quality of care that is provided and the kinds of services that are received. (Caldwell, 2008, pp. 124 -- 133)