Critical Thinking Case Study Faith Community Hospital is a not-for-profit hospital and has a mission statement which is interpreted by everyone the way the want to interpret it. Their mission statement compels them to provide health care services and work towards better health and well-being of the people who belong to the communities that Faith Community Hospital serves. It further includes that they are to provide these services in collaboration with others who share this common vision. Unfortunately the only common vision left amongst the stakeholders at the Faith Community Hospital's board is that this hospital should survive and not be shutdown. The ground realities however are pushing the hospital towards a dead end where it will have no option but to shutdown itself, thus bringing an end to the health care services provided to the people. This is proving to be troublesome for Pat, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the community hospital.

The first problem as related by the CEO is the negative impression and views which the print media is presenting to the masses. The heading in the newspaper being referred to by the CEO points out to the people that numerous deaths occur due to the medical errors and its numbers as many as 100,000 deaths in the hospitals each year. Print media, or any media has great impacts on the masses and many accept its word without trying to get a sight into reality. It has presented its view very generally and given the impression to people that all hospitals create such medical errors and cause the death of numerous patients. The masses do not bother to do a research on which hospitals cause such medical errors or what was the cause of these medical errors. They just accept what the media present and therefore it is very important for any organization to have a positive review of their services in the media. Unfortunately the media here has labeled all hospitals to be inefficient in what they do thus causing a problem for the CEO and his efforts to push Faith Community Hospital on the pathway to success. This occurred due to the fact that the negative views expressed by the print media have reduced the patient turn up at Faith Community Hospital. Reduced patient turn up means a decrease in the revenue of the hospital which is in turn causing the hospital to go into loss because of decreased input and increased output. The output here would be the fixed costs of the hospital that remains unaltered regardless of the number of patients the hospital is attending to. Thus if the amount of revenue generated from the patients falls below the fixed costs, then it would serve to be a problem to run the hospital. Keeping in mind that the hospital is not for making profits but like the CEO expressed his concern, the hospital does need to pay bills in order to survive and serve the community with health care services like its mission statement asks them to do.

An interesting situation arises when the hospital encounters a patient who cannot financially afford his treatment. Different views exist throughout the hospital in how to respond to such a patient and many doctors and healthcare providers are giving their services for free. The CEO describes a case where the pharmacist is accepting payments in installments. These people are acting in this way because of their beliefs that they should do anything and everything that they can to help other human beings. Such actions will have devastating effects on the health of the hospital and there are others who do realize this and as a result do not provide any service to the patient until their insurance coverage is verified and checked. These are the two strict extremes of actions being experienced by the hospital. Some feel that it is their religious and moral duty to help others whether they can pay or not and others feel that it is essential for the hospital to survive so that it can continue providing health care to the people of the communities it serves. However such a harsh action by the people who refuse to serve unless insurance coverage is provided will have negative impact on the people as well as the media. If the media then paints a picture and presents it to the world, Faith Community Hospital would become target to strict criticism and hence become unpopular. People will also tend to think that it is an organization...

This all would add up to a further drop in the patient population and increasing the speed on the roadway to destruction. The CEO also expresses his concern about the inexperienced residents in the hospital and gives an example of a resident who is asking for an examination of the terminally ill that are of no importance whatsoever.
A further problem faced by Faith Community Hospital is that many patients feel that certain medical services go against their beliefs and ethics. If it is the patients who are will to accept medical services, some staff members refuse to provide certain services as they feel it to be against their beliefs and morals. This has led the hospital in trouble with the Child Protective Services which is planning to file charges against the hospital for their lack of providing services. Many voice their opinion for the "right to die" while others take it to be contrary to their religious doctrines. People are acting on their free will and some acted on the "Do Not Resuscitate" directives even when the order did not exist while others failed to act upon it when the orders were in effect. This puts the hospital in an awkward situation where it seems to have no control on the action of its staff members and everyone seems to be doing what they feel is right rather than working in such a way which would ensure the survival of the hospital which in turn would be able to provide health care services to the people as long as it exists.

The problem with Faith Community Hospital is that people are acting on their own without paying attention to the management and the orders by the management. They are working not like a whole body but are working in different parts. Some are doing one thing while the others are doing the complete opposite. To them things are either black or white and the do not realize that between black and white exists grey. Due to their personal interpretations of the mission statement the staff members reject the interpretation by the management of the hospital and are not working together as a system. Differing religious belief or differing inclinations to religious beliefs are causing more problems for the hospital and people assume that they can just reject a medical service because their religion compels them to do so and other staff members feel that they can refuse a particular medical service which is contrary to the spirit of their religious beliefs. This is causing the hospital to go in loss and eventual shutdown thus bringing an end to all the medical services that it can provide to anyone. What Faith Community Hospital needs to do is find a solution and act upon it to ensure its survival in order to extend any healthcare services to the people.

THE SOLUTION AND RATIONALE

It is very important that Faith Community Hospital survives and does not die out. If it does die out then there will be no medical services provided to anyone and it is important for the staff members to realize this fact. First and foremost the hospital needs to formulate a proper interpretation of the mission statement that does not contradict the "not for profit organization" code but yet does not put people in a position where they can come up with their own interpretations thus causing harm to the life of the hospital. This is really important because most of the problems being faced by the hospital are due to the reason that every single person involved is formulating their own personal interpretation and acting upon it. This reduces unity in the first aim of the board members and stake holders which is the survival of the hospital. Naturally if the hospital survives only then any medical service can be provided. Therefore the first aim is the survival of the hospital and thus to make sure it does survive, a proper interpretation should be formulated and all the members participating in the hospital should be made aware of this interpretation. The next step which the management should take is devising policies and regulations. Policies should be made for the betterment of the people and the debate of euthanasia and whether it should be implemented or not should be in accordance to whether the government declares it to be legal or not. If the government does declare it…