Health Care Organization's Assessment and Strategic Plan (Essay Sample)

Health Care Organization's Assessment and Strategic Plan
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Health Care Organization's Assessment and Strategic Plan
Healthcare systems in the world are faced with the challenge of meeting the needs of the growing patient population while improving organizational outcomes. However, an organization needs to evaluate its readiness for change to ascertain its ability to achieve future healthcare goals. This paper examines Banner Health System's readiness to meet citizens' health care needs in the next decade. The organization will be ready to meet future patients' healthcare needs if the organizational culture is improved.
Banner Health System Description
The Banner Health System (BHS) is an integrated health system consisting of the Banner Health Network, a medical school, long-term care facilities, 28 acute-care hospitals, surgery centers, and nursing registries ('About Banner health system [BHS]', 2021). The organization provides health services such as imaging, cancer treatment, heart care, organ and bone transplants, rehabilitation and behavioral services, maternity, hospice, home care, telehealth, emergency, etc. The health system operates in six states, including Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, Wyoming, Nevada, and Nebraska. The organization has over 50,000 employees, making it one of the largest employers in the country's health system ('About BHS', 2021). It is committed to enhance innovation and build the communities they serve by promoting their health and wellbeing
Organization's Readiness
Organizational readiness is the extent to which an organization's employees are psychologically or behaviorally prepared for change. Organizations with high readiness are positively associated with motivated staff that can address change barriers and setbacks (Nuño-Solinís, 2018). The OR4KT (Organizational Readiness for Knowledge Translation in Healthcare Organizations) measurement instruments provide six metrics for measuring organizational readiness: its climate for change, leadership, existing support and motivation, change content, and contextual factors. According to the OR4KT tool, an organization ready for Change (ORC) must have clear organizational goals and priorities (Nuño-Solinís, 2018). Banner Health's vision statement is "to be a national leader recognized for clinical excellence and innovation, preferred for a highly coordinated patient experience, and distinguished by the quality of our people" ('About BHS', 2021). This vision statement shows that the organization is committed to meeting patient's needs by improving patient care. The organization also reports its dedication to continually improving its health services and patient outcomes, further meeting patient needs. According to Shea et al. (2014), change efficacy is achieved when organization members know what to do. Therefore, this vision statement provides that direction to Banner Health employees.
Other metrics that can be used to assess organizational readiness are the existing support and motivation. Shea et al. (2014) state that an organization is more likely to meet its goals when employees know it has enough resources to implement change. BHS must have the necessary resources to deliver timely, safe, and quality healthcare service to meet patient needs. Innovative technologies, such as the telehealth platform used by BHS, can help an organization achieve this goal. Additionally, the organization directs financial resources into expanding its healthcare facilities and infrastructure. Through this expansion, the organization will reach a wider audience, enabling it to meet the target population's health needs. Thus, the organization has adequate resources to enable its staff to meet patients' needs in the future adequately.
Finally, the organizational climate or culture is supportive of the organization's goal of meeting future patient needs. A study conducted by Becky and Chuck (2015) revealed that BHS is a value-based network focusing on quality, cost efficiencies, and population health management tactics. These metrics increase an organization's likelihood of meeting the healthcare needs of its patients. Becky and Chuck (2015) also revealed that the organization's network arrangements are high-value, a characteristic Nuño-Solinís (2018) attributed to ORCs. Since BHS has scored positively on each OR4KT metric, it is logical to argue that it has high readiness for change.
Strategic Plan
Nurse Staffing
The BHS is addressing nursing shortages through training and development. The organization merged with the University of Arizona to create an academic affiliation to increase its workforce expertise in business, consumer focus, and service quality. While career development opportunities improve staff retention prospects, BHS should also consider recruitment strategies to increase its staffing ratios.
Patient Satisfaction
The organization utilizes innovative technologies to improve patient experiences. An example of modern inventions adopted by the institution is the telehealth platform, which facilitates patient-physician interaction, strengthening further clinical communication and relationships. BHS should focus on such innovative technologies to improve patient satisfaction.
Network Growth
The organization's existing plan to improve its network growth is by expanding its facilities and medical centers.
Resource Management
The company currently uses the cost-reduction strategy to limit expenses and costs while expanding its medical facility.
In addition to the existing plan, the organization can implement the following strategic plan to meet patient needs:
* Create a positive work environment characterized by support, nurse engagement, and competitive compensation packages to attract qualified employees.
* Adopt 'telemental' healthcare to reach a wider patient population. Telemental services involve using information technology (IT) to manage mental health patients.
* Build more community-based centers in its network growth expansion to promote population health.
* Use strategic human resource management to manage employees to improve staffing outcomes. The organization should also consider approaches, technologies, and practices that maximize efficiency, value, and effectiveness to enhance its financial solvency.
Potential Organizational Culture Issues
Workplace culture is integral in a company's ability to achieve its strategic goals and progressive improvement. A survey conducted by 1,154 BHS employees reported that the company has a good learning environment with numerous career development opportunities (‘Banner Health’, n.d.). However, BHS leadership was poorly rated in managerial support and team relationships. Employees complained of company politics