Organizational design in healthcare agencies: internal and external factors

Organizational Design

A health care agency or hospital design is very important as it portrays the beliefs and values of that health care. Designs should be designs that care not only for the physicians, trustees, administrators but also for the patients. Thus seeking architectural advice for the construction of a health care is imperative.

There are several architectural design phases such as Schematic design (SD), design development (DD and construction documents (CD). Designs are important to ensure that original intents are not comprised in terms of internal readiness and processes improvement plans.

The design of my healthcare organization, the Legacy Home Health Care in Texas, is such that all types of processes have been mapped beginning from admitting, discharge, billing, and medication requirements. This simplifies the work thus eliminating inefficiencies and focusing mainly on improving patient care.

In addition, the design is such that all the staff is familiar with design features of the Legacy Home Health Care and is also driven by community and program needs by complying with the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (an internationally recognized green building certification system) in efforts to becoming carbon neutral.

Factors that define and shape the health care agency

Robert F.Carr (2010) quotes Winston Churchill (1941) as having said that "We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us." He further notes that the design of a facility carries the message to visitors, patients, vendors, volunteers and even the staff themselves. It communicates clues about the organization and the medical care being provided there. The facility design should convey a message that is welcoming, caring, comfort, and compassion, commitment to well-being and safety, features that are evident in Legacy Home Health Care.

Internal factors

Good design in Legacy Home Health Care setting starts by recognizing the basic functional needs so as to meet the emotional needs of those who use those facilities thus shaping how big or small the organization will be, structure and process. This involves combination of several internal factors such as:

Architecture design- an aesthetically pleasing facility is a key aspect and also a strategy of painting a picture of the quality of care that is provided by the health care agency. It's an important tool in attracting and retaining the best doctors and nurses and due to increasing competition for both patients and staff, having the best and attractive architectural design will keep the cost down allowing the organization to grow in size, refine the chains of command and delegation of authority as well as improved processes.

Flexibility- Legacy Home Health Care is flexible enough to accommodate the changing needs and absorption of new technologies which driven by globalization. This has made it difficult to have definite forecast of the direction of health care due to evolution of new equipment technologies, new treatment methodologies, changes in diseases thus laying an emphasis on the need to have a flexible facility, to allow special care units and personalized medical units to meet the needs of the patients as well as improving the quality of the health care being provided.

In the light of a flexible facility, Legacy Home Health Care has managed to have the right size to meet the above said needs, have structure that is subject to change and easy to altered to meet the organization goals and objectives and also changing processes accordingly to suit the current situation.

Physical environment- National Institute of Health Report (2001) admitted that physical environment have been associated with improvements in health care working conditions. The report also acknowledged the work of Ulrich (1992) that work space design features can help or hinder the accomplishment of work. These design features may include; color, lighting, art, and music that may affect patients, all this operational characteristics affect work flow designs and the quality of care provided and therefore shaping the structure of the organization and processes in terms of access to a health worker.

Work hours and staffing- work performance is influenced by how work is organized, health care personnel and existence of clearly defined processes. Multitasking in my health care agency is not allowed as this may lead to fatigue and sleep deprivation and consequently comprising the safety and quality of care provided since the will to care is hampered by fatigue and sleep deprivation, (Robins, 1995).

External factors

According to Walter Johnson (2011), the designs of other organizations affect other organizations and help improve the design of each particular organization and the design illustrates as to how quick an organization can respond to an external environment. These factors include:

Culture of the organization- National Institute of Health Report,(2001) agrees with the work of Leatt (2000) that each organization has its own distinctive culture even at different operating units of the organization. Strong cultures can have significant influence on organizational performance thus shaping what size the organization can become, decision making and processes.

Leaders have a responsibility of shaping the culture of their organization as it is significantly influenced by environment, individuals and organization wide factors. Legacy Home Health Care has the trend of providing quality health care regardless of age, sex, race, religion, national origin or handicap status within the comforts of their own homes, in both rural and urban settings (Legacy Home Health Care, 2011), and this is a culture that has been embedded in the organizational structure.

Competition- every industry has its competitors. As the environment becomes increasingly competitive, health care organizations lay different strategies raging from, downsizing, reengineering, restructuring in order to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Leatt (1997). Legacy Home Health Care has positively used such strategies to improve its structure, size and process so as to be relevant in the marketplace without bruising the quality of care we provide. Further more Legacy Home Health Care maintains a modern form structure that ensures employee satisfaction thus reducing employee labor turn over.

Technology -- technology has become a major driver and strategy for remaining competitive in all sectors of the economy. The design of my health care agency is that it allows space for changes in technology and a flexible structure that ensures that there are no standardized routines or process that, in essence will stagnate the progress of the agency since the environment is continuously dynamic and ever changing.