Case Rio Grande Medical Group

¶ … hospital as a business. Indeed, a hospital is at the same time, a social organization, where the interrelationship with the patients/customers is essential, but, on the other hand, it is also a business entity, with the profit maximization as the main objective, with costs and revenues that need to be accounted for. With this in our head, it is clear that the managers we will be forming need to include both these traits in their managerial evolution.

The training sessions will center themselves on obtaining three main elements. The first two are related to those described in the previous paragraph. As mentioned, a good manger needs to be able to create connections to his customers/patients and he needs to be able to efficiently manage costs and revenues, all financial issues that may arise.

The third element we will be looking to obtain in our training is the capacity to efficiently organize and lead the human resource working in each of the departments. This is perhaps the most important issue of all: motivate your team so that it will produce the best results.

As we have seen from the case study, the hospital has, at present, two problems related to the hospital staff. First of all, an incapacity to respect patient expectations. In our training sessions, there is a distinct need to create a set of ground rules, a set of ground objectives that will become the recognized regulations for the hospital. These can come in the form of mottos or as things we believe in: a number of short sentences expressing the staff's credo. It will be the departmental managers' duty to implement it at lower levels of the staff.

The definition and implementation of a set of rules about how to interrelate to patients will be created with the help of all department managers during the training sessions. We hope this will help create a set of common values everybody working in the hospital believes in and will be easier to implement lower down the hierarchy.

The second issue related to the team each departmental manager works with is the definition and implementation of motivating factors that will increase overall work efficiency and the capacity to obtain better results. The training sessions will need to present a set of motivating factors that may be used by the managers, as well as the means by which these factors can be implemented.

Motivating factors may include anything from words of praise to the nurses and staff when a work is properly pursued and instructions respected to increases in salaries or reductions of the work schedule. The way these motivating factors are applied is also important, as the staff should never feel that he is being done a favor, but rather that he is being rewarded for the work done and this will create the necessary incentive to fully perform in the future as well.

A managerial training course should also include pointers on how to relate to the staff in the team, how to take decisions and implement them without upsetting the psychological boundaries any individual has. The manager needs to learn that he is implementing a decision rather than commanding on the staff to perform a certain duty. The team spirit should be promoted rather than the boss-like approach. This will tend to create a better working and performing environment.

The business aspect of the hospital organization is not to be ignored in the training sessions. The medical staff in charge of the departments need to clearly be pointed out the fact that, as a business organization, the hospital needs to act as any other company and reduce costs so as to increase profits. This means an efficient activity rather than an overall reduction in material and equipment costs, essential for a proper activity within the organization.

As such, the financial issue and the human resource/motivating issue are the most relevant aspects of the training. The departmental manager will learn that he needs to be efficient by improving the capacity of the workforce working in each department rather than by cutting costs randomly.