Essay Sample on Leadership and Direction in Health Care: Little Success in a Complex Environment

Introduction

The provision of direction, as well as leadership in helping to accomplish health services, have faced a lot of setbacks in recent years. The rapid rise of these problems is a result of diverse, complex, and growing healthcare services that are being offered in the contemporary world (VanVactor, 2012). The inception of technology has brought as many agonies as joy in health care management. Little success has been recorded despite protracted efforts to curb the issues. Different health organization has set up policies, techniques, and procedures to address this menace. However, the same old story has always persistent.

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From a holistic approach, technology, finance, and economy are the prime sources of the problem. Technology is good and bad in equal measure. Despite the transformation courtesy of technology, there have been various issues that have been associated with the use of technology. Technology can be quite unsafe if wrongly handled by unskilled personnel. Technology has given birth to matters of regulatory compliance and security to laws that are protecting patients, mostly confidentiality (Yang, Y., Kankanhalli, A., & Chandran, S., 2014). Cyberattack isn't new. Computer illiteracy, unprofessionalism, and lack of trained personnel have been the driving force in breaching patients' rights. Ignorance by the security personnel has caused significant damage. Uncontended workers have also played a substantial role in violating rules and procedures which govern the operations of a health organization.

Rising costs have been a nightmare to managers in their pursuit of delivering affordable healthcare rates. Some of these inflating costs are due to the ascending expenses of insurance premiums, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare spending. A weak economy is a threat to every industry in a country. The effort of merging all providers at all levels has been a nightmare to managers in weak and uneven economic development. Some economically challenged areas are resistant to change, making health managers endure a turbulent time in executing their duty.

Healthcare financing has transformed from individual paying for themselves to health insurance payment (Kumar, A. S., Chen, L. C., Choudhury, M., Ganju, S., Mahajan, V., Sinha, A., & Sen, A., 2011). This has been common in most developed countries to enable financing of the government. Managers have formulated measures to curb financial issues like distribution of financial risks, mobilization of funds, provider payment incentives, and allocation, and utilization of funds. Managers have made health financing information such as prices, expenditure, and costs available. Much attention is given to drafting regulation and laws to achieve a more just financial policy. Proper distribution of societal health funds can help address these issues. Managers' zero tolerance to corruption has been of vital importance. Curbing this menace demands clear laws, diligent enforceable discipline, and oversight.

Organizations and governments have both put in place laws that protect patients' privacy (Taitsman, J. K., Grimm, C. M., & Agrawal, 2013). Confidentiality is highly observed in the health sectors. Disclosing information about a patient to a third party without the explicit consent of the owner is illegal. Appointment of high skilled personnel, who comprehensively understand the dynamic cybersecurity. Unskilled information officers mishandling the system can cause a lot of damage. Education of IT personnel on the danger of sharing passwords, social engineering, and ignorance C. Workers in an organization ought to be diligent, professionals Nand people of integrity. Organizations need to take the initiative and implement the proper infrastructure that can anticipate a crisis. In the context of technology, this means secure hardware, software supplemented by highly skilled personnel.

Confidentiality of patients' information is essential in the healthcare sector. Disclosure of patients' information has been rampant in recent years. Organizations should have the capacity to anticipate the future crisis. After the organizations experience system infiltration and information exposure, the first reaction of an organization is to answer the question, why?. This highlights the possible vulnerabilities and flaws of the system. Some of the critical issues were the cases of nurses logging into the system and leaving the systems running, leaving systems passwords written on papers, unprotected printers, and fax machines, using one password to access all department systems. Such ignorant acts can prompt a malicious individual to break into the system and expose sensitive data. The organization identified this act as both ignorance and a lack of computer security knowledge. The organizations organized for workshops, seminars, and benchmarking to educate all workers on the proper way of handling the system. Again, in response, the organization had to initiate learning programs that teach workers on the ethical conduct of their work. Lack of programs that address password issues prompted the organization to make an effort to get the best software for doing such duties.

Health workers did not understand social engineering. Workers were taught how malicious people do impersonation to gain illegal access to systems. Some of the workers seemed not to follow the law that governs patients' privacy rights. Giving out patients' files to unknown people was a breach of privacy. These organizations familiarized the laws governing patients' privacy and the relevant legal ramification associated with the infringement of the same. The organizations also formulated policies and procedures that controlled how workers should work and conduct themselves. Computer illiterate people in the organization were served with a notice to get computer basics certificates.

Conclusion

In my organization, the above issues can be addressed through enlightenment. Computer security policies and procedures are not known to many. The company's embrace of highly skilled labor who understand the security of information systems can mitigate this menace. The use of sophisticated infrastructure which can prevent and minimize some of the mistakes done by illiterate workers. Again. Workshops, benchmarking, and seminars can help educate nurses on system handling. My organization can also scrutinize the integrity of different workers to prevent information compromise and confidentiality.

Reference

Kumar, A. S., Chen, L. C., Choudhury, M., Ganju, S., Mahajan, V., Sinha, A., & Sen, A. (2011). Financing health care for all: challenges and opportunities. The Lancet, 377(9766), 668-679.

Taitsman, J. K., Grimm, C. M., & Agrawal, S. (2013). Protecting patient privacy and data security. New England Journal of Medicine, 368(11), 977-979.

VanVactor, J. D. (2012). Collaborative leadership model in the management of health care. Journal of Business Research, 65(4), 555-561.

Yang, Y., Kankanhalli, A., & Chandran, S. (2014). Evolution of Information Technology in Healthcare. In PACIS (p. 215).