Effective information sharing techniques in boundaryless healthcare organizations

¶ … Healthcare Workplaces Today Considered True Boundaryless

The concept of the boundaryless organization demonstrates a trend in healthcare and elsewhere that claims that an organization is most effective when it is collaborating with all inside and outside interests to build a dynamic workplace that works best for everyone. The challenges might simply be information sharing but it can also take the form of communication for change. The health care field is an ever changing network of core and support personnel as well as a whole pool of individual consumers that utilize services and might have an important role to play in positive change. This work will briefly discuss the historical utilization of boundaryless organization tool by looking at what techniques have been most effective for sharing information and ideas, what techniques were ineffective in the past and at how these techniques might be used in the future i.e. how these techniques might be applied or modified in a healthcare work environment, and how technology can impact this process.

What Works

Inter-employee communications have been a successful aspect of reducing boundaries in most healthcare settings as inter-departmental employees frequently have a good idea of where others in the department are coming from. The inter-departmental employees are the most likely to see a need for change and/or greater sharing and make changes either formally or informally to redirect or alter best practices in such a way that they best meet the needs of both the staff and the patient. In the past there may have been hierarchical barriers to inter-employee communication but such standards and practices are significantly reduced in numbers and many more organizations, including mine demonstrate a keen sense of collective communication and change from the bottom up as well as the top town. Additionally, once a consensus has been developed within the core staff the support staff and extra-department staff members that might affect change are then supported in communicating with core staff about how that change might be affected and how to incorporate it in the change process. Lastly, these inter-employee and extra-employee communications work best when there is a recognized problem that needs a solution, such as a work process that is slowed by something that all involved are doing or not doing or a physical/environmental issue that can be altered to make a process work better. These collaborative changes also work well when only one area (such as nurses or technicians) are aware of a work slowdown and others must be made aware of it to resolve it. They also work well when the collective body is made aware of a statistical change that needs to be addressed to make the department more sustainable and better serve the patient. The days of the lone physician are ending as well as the days of the independent nurse or support staff, or even an independent lone hospital as collaboration takes hold as the best approach to challenges of patient care (Saba, Villela, Chen, Hammer, & Bodenheimer, 2012, pp. 169-173; Magaw, 2012, p. 8).

Modifications

The manner in which collaboration techniques that have been ineffective in the past, such as hierarchical (top-down) change that has been influenced by outside collaboration can be changed is for more and more staff to be offered opportunity to attend and interact with collaborative process makers. This means that health care organizations need to allow and even support collaboration of all staff with professional organizations, continuing education seminars and other circumstances where individuals come into contact with others in and outside their field who have effected positive change. The other aspect of this type of change process is creating true collaborations where individuals from every area of the agency and/or department demonstrate involvement in decisions and the reasons for them. This type of process is often effected by developing true open door policies where issues can be discussed with core staff, team leaders and administrators and others that call attention to change needs and ask those most affected to interject and make suggestions for change (Springer, 2009, p. 9; Maiers, Westrom, Legendre, & Bronfort, 2010, p. 10298) .

Technology

Clearly technology has played and will continue to play a significant role in change in the health care field. With the adoption of electronic medical records as well as strict guidelines for sharing and protecting patient information protocols and possibilities for collaboration among team members from the patients primary care provider to the individual providing vocational rehab is possible. The technology allows individuals (all members of the direct care team) to view outcomes of other medical care interventions as well as demonstrate collaborative conversations to assist in making changes that could directly affect the outcomes for the patient. Technology also makes it possible on a broader scale for physicians and/or nurses, or others really to have conversations about best practices, new techniques and countless other systems and personal issues that will better serve the patient(s). For example research teams that have published field research on a technique that has not been tried by your team can be reached in unprecedented ways, allowing the whole body of medical research to become a living body of evidentiary-based medicine. In other words when a new technique or process is identified in current research a team across the world can contact the researcher to clarify processes and other fine-tuned aspects of research applications to tweak their own processes and hopefully more rapidly affect greater outcomes. Researchers no longer have to travel across the country or world to demonstrate the effectiveness of their technique, instead they can simply answer a few emails or conference call a team elsewhere to help change introduced by a written document of research, anything from better electronic record keeping or better systems design to a more precise, or effective way to deliver radiation therapy, the limits are boundless. Finally, but very importantly electronic medical records data will likely serve as a fundamental source for research in the future, and especially long-term research as identifying information can be eliminated and important search terms added to create databases that will yield results that can then be further researched to better understand long-term treatment and effect future change.

Resources

Heslop, L., & Sim, J. (2012). CALNOC demonstrates leadership in nursing outcomes research. Australian Nursing Journal, 19(8), 32.

Magaw, T. (2012). Independent hospitals see benefits. Crain's Cleveland Business, 33(11), 8.

Maiers, M., Westrom, K., Legendre, C., & Bronfort, G. (2010). Integrative care for the management of low back pain: use of a clinical care pathway. BMC Health Services Research, 10298.

Saba, G.W., Villela, T.J., Chen, E., Hammer, H., & Bodenheimer, T. (2012). The Myth of the Lone Physician: Toward a Collaborative Alternative. Annals Of Family Medicine, 10(2), 169-173. doi:10.1370/afm.1353

Springer, C. (2009). Managing with Strategic Themes. PA Times, 32(5), 9.