Health care strategic management

¶ … stakeholders that have significant interest in a new organizational structure? What are their concerns, and how should they be addressed?

Any health care organization is made up of a variety of organizational stakeholders with a variety of often-competing concerns -- doctors and other health care providers, office and managerial staff, and health care consumers all bring different, but equally significant concerns and interests to the changing face of the organization. The main conflicting ideological divisions within the organization are most often manifested between health care providers in the field, such as doctors and nurses, who interact with patients on a daily basis, and the members of the managerial, financial, and clerical staff of the hospital who do not and may have a different (though no less important) view of hospital procedures and needs. Lastly, the patients themselves will have needs that must be addressed, as they grow familiar with the any shift in organizational policy that results from the establishment of a new organizational framework.

Even within an existing and familiar organizational structure, different personnel will be in conflict occasionally, no matter how well managed the environment. But when a new organizational structure is created, the conflicts of concern and standard operating procedures between different staff areas can be even more acute. Moreover, even within professional and managerial staff there may be differences of attitude and concerns -- one is by definition more patient-focused, while the other more focused on the long-term financial stability of the organization.

Awareness of potential conflicts is the first step when an organizational reorganization takes place -- such as an awareness of the different perspective the introduction of personnel from a smaller, slow-paced and more personal environment that is integrated into a larger structure will provide. Such personnel may be frustrated with the larger, less one-on-one environment, and the greater stress upon bureaucracy. Another way to minimize conflicts in new organizations is to introduce efficiency measurement initiatives in an objective fashion, that stress meaningfulness and validity of the procedures, and that objectively validate the regulations that are instituted. This stresses that the organizational measures are not enforced arbitrarily, or to favor one group of employees or the procedures of any preexisting organization. (Leapfrog, 2005)