Healthcare Paper Example: Project in Organization Leadership

Healthcare is a complex system that encompasses distinctive economic processes, regulatory mandates as well as quality indicators that are not evidenced in traditional business organization settings (Lipsitz, 2012). As such, it is imperative to develop a distinct set of skills that relate to organizational leadership as well as inter-professional team development within the healthcare sector at all levels (Bridges, et al., 2011). As the complexity of the healthcare sector increases, it is essential to comprehend the extensive patient-care management approach across the healthcare sector (Finkel, 2007). Also, it is imperative to understand the concepts of organizational leadership as well as team development and their support to healthcare leaders in developing a patients centric environment. This assessment provides a comprehensive framework via which healthcare stakeholders can experience as well as understand leadership concepts employed within the healthcare sector. The assessment also aids the stakeholders to understand the implications of business and regulatory mandates in offering patient-centered care.

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Business Practices

Patient-centered care describes the offering of healthcare services to patients through respecting and responding to their individual preferences, values as well as need (Gerteis, Edgman-Levitan, Daley, & Delbanco, 2002). It also involves ensuring that the patients values are employed in guiding all the clinical decisions. In the contemporary healthcare sector, business practices, reimbursement as well as regulatory requirements immensely impact the execution of patient-centered care within a healthcare institution. This can be accredited to several reasons such as the need to attain improved financial performance, enhance the hospitals market share, elevate the employees satisfaction, raise a hospitals ranking and improve the patients health outcomes. Also, reimbursement today has become more tied up to clinical outcomes as well as patients satisfaction (Watson, 2010). This can be evidenced by reason that patient experience surveys in the healthcare institutions have become increasingly essential tools for the hospitals performance evaluation. They assist the healthcare leaders in their efforts to improve the patients experiences in the healthcare institutions.

B. Self-Assessment Tool

There are four primary elements considered in the Patient and Family-Centered Care organizational self-assessment tool (PFCC). The first element incorporates leadership/operations, environment/design, values, mission and vision goals, quality improvements as well as advisor domains. The second element features information and education domain. The third element represents the care support, diversity, and disparities as well as charting and documentations domains. The final element is focused on the care offered to patients in the healthcare facility setting.

B1. Setting Description

The healthcare setting used for this assessment is the New York Presbyterian Hospital (Eisenstadt & Moss, 2005). It is situated in New York and is considered to be the largest hospital in the state. The healthcare facility has 2,478 hospital beds in total (Eisenstadt & Moss, 2005). The healthcare institution was chosen for the assessment because it is also one of the largest medical institutions in the United States. It is also among the largest private employers of healthcare personnel in the New York City (Ed.D. & Connolly, 2011). Also, it is one of the globes busiest medical institutions. It was founded in 1771 as a state hospital and converted to a New York Presbyterian Hospital in 1998 (Eisenstadt & Moss, 2005). Some of the healthcare support systems recognized in the hospital include Medicare and Medicaid programs. The hospital is also affiliated with two medical training institutions, which are the Columbia University's College of Physicians as well as the Well Cornell Medical College (Barnhill, 2013).

B2. Strengths and Weaknesses of Each Domain

The strengths of the first element can be evidenced through the leadership/operations, and quality improvements domains. The strength of the elements can be supported by reason that the institutions leaders have offered a clear statement of their commitment to both patient/family partnerships in offering patient-centered care. They also have a patient and families inclusion policy aimed at incorporating the patients in all healthcare interventions. Under the quality improvements domain, the institution also portrays its strength through its ability to inform patients and families about the institutions strategic goals. The hospital also involves the patients and families in quality, safety and risk organizational meetings.

The institution also encourages patients to attend to various meetings such as the IHI, and NPSF meetings. Nevertheless, the first element has several weaknesses such as the lack of patients involvement in advisory council and safety meetings. Also, there are no patients or families who are members of the hospital committee. The patients rights and responsibilities are also not well defined in the organizations mission, vision and value statements. On the other hand, the primary strength of the second element in the PFCC tool is the finding that the institution provides sufficient web portal services to patients and families. The online portals are aimed at providing the patients and families with sufficient information pertaining specific medical resources offered by the hospital. They also encourage email access to patients and the usage of resource rooms as additional tools for effective patient-centered interventions.

The strengths of the third element can be evidenced through the charting and documentation domain since patients have easy and unrestricted access to all their electronic medical records as well as other personal medical charts. Also, the institution has effective patients care support service that is capable of issuing patient disclosures and apologies due to an error that could affect patients due to the undertakings of the institution. Under the care support domain, the institution also allows the presence of the patients families, especially during risky events. Patients can also activate immediate response systems as well as receive updated past medical history during every visit to the hospital.

Nevertheless, there are several cases that can be evidenced by the third element. Under the care support domain, the family members are not offered a 24/7 access to the patient in the healthcare institution. Also, the family members cannot join the hospitals medical personnel in developing the join in rounds as well as the change in shifts reports. Also, the hospital has a poor system of handling the patients from diverse cultures. For instance, they have poor data measurement and collection techniques when serving minority patients. They also do not offer patients with racially diverse communities a timely access to capable interpreter services during a healthcare intervention. Also, they lack navigator programs for underserved as well as minority patients.

Ultimately, there are four primary strengths of the fourth element in the PFCC domain. First, patients and families are engaged by the institution when making goals. They are also treated as respected partners during care delivery to a patient. The patients families are also included in care planning, and transition processes and also the patients pain is managed in partnership with the patients families. Under the last domain, there is a major weakness that can be evidenced from the PFCC chart.

C. Area of Improvement

C1. Improvement Strategy

The primary area in the healthcare institution that should be improved is the families involvement in the patients treatment process. This is because family involvement plays a primary role in the attainment of improved patients health outcome. Over the years, families have become underappreciated aspects of healthcare service delivery, both in terms of their relevance and impact on the patients health (Glynn, et al., 2006). As a way of reducing the resource burden in most healthcare institutions, most hospitals has been emphasizing on patient treatments as well as community recovery interventions through families involvement in treatment (Parker and Clarke, 2002).

For this reason, more improved measures aimed at ensuring that patients families are involved in the patients treatment should be enacted in the institution. This can be achieved through ensuring that both patients and families are involved in various functions in the hospital. For instance, both patients and families should be involved in the advisory council and safety meetings, be appointed as members of the hospital committee and have their rights amended in the hospitals mission, vision and value statements. Families should also be offered a 24/7 access to the patients in the hospital and also be offered a chance to partake in the rounds and change of patient care shifts in the institution.

C1a. System Theory of Change

The theory of change in management that will be utilized for this assessment is the general system theory. It was initially developed by Ludwig Bertalanffy who was a renowned biologist. According to the theory, it is important to analyze all components in a system as a whole instead of reducing them into investigable, independent units that interplay to form a single system. This system will be the most efficient for the assessment because it will be focused on patient-centered care as a single primary system to address all weaknesses manifested in different domains of the PFCC element chart.

From the PFCC analysis, there were several weaknesses that were evidenced in different domains of the four elements considered. For this reason, it would be simpler for the management team to address all the weaknesses evidenced on the PFCC using one change system. For instance, through the use of the general system theory, the leaders of the institution will ensure that all efforts employed under every domain are focused towards the attainment of a single goal. That is to promote the patient-centered care in the institution. As such, the identified weaknesses will be addressed by ensuring that they are all changed and focused on achieving the preset goal of the organization, which is focused on attaining a patient-centered care for addressing all the patients.

C2. Financial Implications

The implementation of familys involvement as an effective strategy of enhancing patient-centered care in the hospital will reduce the financial burden associated with treating patients for long periods in the institution. This is because it has been scientifically proven that families involvement aids in improving the recovery period taken by patients in medical institutions. As such, an improved rate of patients recovery through family involvement will allow the hospital to handle more patients in their facilities. This will also translate into increased income and profits for the hospital.

C3. Methods of Evaluation

So as to gauge the effectiveness of the strategy identified in increasing the patient-centered care, a short survey will be issued to all the patients and families involved in various treatments offered in the hospital. Both the patients and families involved will answer ten structured questions pertaining the effectiveness of the hospital in ensuring they offer patient-centered care to all patients in the institution. This model is effective, inex...