JGH Profile Privacy

The author of this report is asked to profile and otherwise answer questions regarding Canadian company JGH. A description of the services and structure will be offered and then the author will speak of the management theories and practices that the company engages in. How obvious and transparent these practices are will be discussed and whether or not it would be prudent and wise of JGH to continue that strategy. The climate of the organization will be summarized and critiqued as well as the diversity orientation of the firm. While JGH certainly has room for improvement, they are indeed doing many things quite well and they are certainly moving in the right direction.

Questions Answered

JGH stands for Jewish General Hospital, a research hospital based on Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are a McGill University teaching hospital and their website is tailored to the mixed language disposition of Montreal and the larger province of Quebec in that their website is in both English and French. The hospital's website is obviously and apparently tailored to informing the patient of the offerings and procedures of the hospital. Their news feed is full of advances and progress that the hospital or people affiliated with the same are making and how they benefit the targeted demographics, diseases and/or fields of study (JGH, 2014).

As noted in the description of the hospital's website, it is clear that their focus is on providing information, care and solace to patients. For example, their media center website lists the fields in which they have experts which include administration, cardiovascular, HIV / AIDS, urology, palliative care, oncology, gynecology and others. They also give detailed backgrounds of their professionals and the fields in which they treat and serve (JGH, 2014). As far as what general management theory that Jewish General Hopsital is engaging in, it is clear that they are focus on service and quality. The quality relates to the adeptness of the care as well as how it is presented to the public. Even fine details like the customization of the website in French and English is a nod to regional trends and preferences of the local populace and that speaks to the quality just as well as metrics like quality of care and accuracy of the information on the website ("Medical quality," 2010).

The mission statement of Jewish General Hospital, as stated on the JGH websites, has five main sections and dimensions. They are providing the safe efficient, high quality and timely care to patients, to deliver state of the art teaching, to reinforce and "live" the core values of Judaism, develop cutting-edge academic research and to lead by example in terms of internal governance standards and so forth. Those is a strong set of mission statement values and there is no mention of things like profit and shareholders/stakeholders in the corporate sense of the word. A fairly notable weakness, at least from a public relations standpoint, is the third statement about the Jewish faith and lifestyle. Running medical care from any sort of religious perspective is seen by many hospitals and healthcare providers as a birthright but it can be a landmine if done to excess and/or at odds with the broader medical ethics of a country or the world. To see this in real life, one need look no further than the legal spat between American arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby amidst its refusal to provide the "morning after" pill on the grounds that the privately held but publicly operating company's disagreement with abortion in all of its actual or perceived forms. This has reached the Supreme Court of the United States and both Hobby Lobby and the United States government are both standing pat with the insistence that both sides are violating part of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Much the same thing could happen with Jewish General Hospital if it takes a stand on anything religious in nature that runs afoul of the law,...

It could absolutely impact someone like the author of this report if the hospital holds a moral standard on things like birth control, contraception in general, abortion of any form or other medical care that is controversial or morally engrained in nature. As far as the climate of the organization, the aforementioned values and mission statement factors are well-done and mostly non-religious and that is really necessary when dealing with a hospital or any other service that is quality-of-life and/or life-and-death in nature. Many perceive healthcare to be a right and a country like Canada that has a nationalized healthcare system is certainly an example of where this belief is common. As such, the four non-religious factors in their mission statement will get across-the-board agreement but the Jewish value one may not, at least not all of the time (JGH, 2014).
The human resources department page for Jewish General was done much better as there is no religious message or theme to be seen. Overall, they keep int fairly simple by stating their mission statement as well as their values. The latter is constrained to fairness/professionalism, leadership, quality and respect/integrity and so forth. This could perhaps be a calculated move on the part of Jewish General. This is almost certainly true given the inclusion of the religious message on the more general mission statement aspects. However, it is encouraging that Jewish General is cognizant of the fact that they cannot and should not impose their viewpoints and ethics on all of their employees and the broader human resources and ethical values must hold true when it comes to operating the hospital. Holding true to one's own values should not be confused with imposing them on someone else. One is generally acceptable to do and the other is usually not acceptable (JGH, 2014)(NursesPro, 2014).

Indeed, limiting the executive hires and/or general hires to people that favor Jewish people and/or are Jewish themselves would be exceedingly unwise and should not be done. Doing otherwise would severely limit the talent pool from which Jewish General would be able to draw and would open up JGH to lawsuits and poor press for not being open to hiring people of all races, religions and genders. In terms of how this relates to the diversity orientation of the organization, the absence of a particular religious or racial vein on the human resources page is a good sign. Diversity for diversity's sake is a bridge too far but Jewish General should absolutely hire people of varying perspectives and backgrounds because this would only help Jewish General in the long run. Also encouraging is the mention of stakeholders, rather than shareholders, on the "respect" part of the human resources values statement as the former would include all potential hires and patients of the hospital, rather than just the existing employees or the people that will personally benefit if the hospital does well (John Hopkins, 2014)(RWJF, 2014).

Making human resources and diversity decisions based on what is best for the patients and the organization is always the wiser course and offering any constraints that hinders that at all will only hurt the hospital in the long run. It is wise to bring in a good wealth of people that speak both French and English, that are from varied backgrounds, and that offer any sort of expertise that the hospital is short of or otherwise lacking and this should hold true regardless of nation of origin, race, gender or any other demographical factor that has nothing to do with quality of care or job performance. Indeed, health disparities exist around the world that seem to be separate in terms of gender, race and nation of origin and continuing that trend in any way within the confines of Jewish General Hospital would not be ethical and/or legal (Brimmer, 2012).

Jewish General Hospital has a fairly robust career page in that there is a list of job opportunities, people can create a profile, people can make a general application, people can get job alerts when a job matching their profile is posted, what external recruiters engage in seeking out applicants to work for Jewish General and the other general recruitment activities that exist for Jewish General. The benefits and "perks" of employment with Jewish General are articulated as well. These benefits are varied and smart as they include a fitness club option, transit passes, preferred rates and pricing for mobile phones and so forth and so on. The termination process with Jewish is not covered from what the author of this report can see but the author presumes it's consistent with like-minded and comparable providers in a medical and/or hospital setting (JGH, 2014).

In terms of the takeaways and conclusions that the author of this report would offer, the author has a couple.…