Problems Experienced by St. George Nursing Home Paper Example

Problems currently experienced by St. George Nursing Home.

According to Maxwell dimension of service dimension, in ascertaining the quality of health service, one should consider its efficiency, effectiveness, equity, accessibility, and relevance. However, St. George services do not meet the criteria because of the problem it encounters. Based on a review of the report presented by CQC, St George faces several problems which hiders quality care. Firstly, the nursing home lacks proper leadership to oversee efficient resources utilization. As a result, it has failed to maintain efficiency in operations, thus leading to low-quality care. According to Mosadeghrad (2012, 257), efficiency in health care is the ability to use available resources to realize the best results. Therefore, to ensure the superior quality care to patients, the nursing home ought to ensure proper utilization of the available resources. However, that is not the case at the nursing home. It has an adequate number of nurses, but they lack the skills and expertise to provide the right medical attention to its main target clients. In the report, among the 32 patients found in the facility, 20 had dementia. Lack of appropriate skills, failure to motivate nurses and other stakeholders, lack of training and access to medical practitioners highlights some of the challenges that St. George Nursing Home experience.

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The Leadership at the nursing home failed to motivate the employee to deliver quality care. According to Beckford "If senior management is not committed to the quality in everything that they say, and do then the organization will not 'care' about quality (Beckford., 2016, 19). At St. George, the management claims that it is committed towards quality, but they do take the necessary action to motivate the employee to practice the same. Nurses at the facility lack the necessary skills and expertise to provide care to patients with dementia, but the management has failed to support their training. Also, the facility lacks special activities to cater to the needs of some patients. As a result, the effectiveness of the facility is threatened thus leading to low-quality care.

The nursing home also lacks access to the right medical practitioners. Poor-quality care is due to a lack of workforce with relevant knowledge and skills to provide superior services (Mosadeghrad., 2012, 252). The existing nurses lack specialty required in effective care delivery. Such is attributed to poor recruitment process employed by the management. The report indicates that the management does not conduct prior employment check to determine the suitability of the nurses in services delivery.

Finally, St. George has a rigid organizational system that is not open to rapid changes. As a result, it cannot adjust to accommodate the demand of the patients. An organization with a rigid organization will show much resistance to change, thus impacting on their ability to meet customer expectation (Beckford., 2016, 21). In the end, it fails to offer quality services and goods to the customer. The management of St. George has indicated its failure to recognize the demand of the majority of a patient who has dementia. As a result, they fail to provide activities aimed at improving their well-being. Also, they do not supply nurses with experience in dealing with such conditions. Their failure has deprived the facility of the opportunity to realize their quality objective.

Analyze and conclude whether St. George Nursing Home has capable and competent staff to increase the quality of service delivery.

The report presented by CQC cited lack of competent staff as a major problem to quality care at St. George. In this case, it suggested that despite the existence of an adequate number of nurses, they lacked the expertise and skills require to attend to patients with different medical condition. For example, when the inspection was conducted, there were 32 patients at the facility, but 20 had dementia. However, the majority of the staff were unable to offer the right medical attention to the patients. Further analysis of the information from the inspection revealed that lacked proper knowledge of medication administration.

The lack of competence and capability among the staff is attributed to several factors. Firstly, an organization with an inadequate number of capable employees attribute the situation lack of training. Through training, an organization succeeds in enhancing the employees' productivity in service delivery. Training also provides the employee with the opportunity to learn and increase their competency (Nda et al.,2013, 92). Based on such finding, an organization with a trained workforce boost of a vast source of competent staff capable of increasing the quality of service delivery. Further analysis of the benefits of training revealed it leads to a decline in the number of accidents and errors committed on the job (Onyango & Wanyoike.,2014, 13). Therefore, by implementing a training program, a company succeed in creating a team of staff with the competence and capability to increase the quality of service delivery.

Secondly, the lack of competency is due to an ineffective recruitment process. Failure of the management to undertake proper scrutiny on job applicant leads to the selection of employees without the necessary skills for effective performance. Also, they lack the necessary experience skills to deliver superior performance. When those staffs are integrated into the organization, they failed to live up to the expectation of customers thus leading decrease in the quality of service delivery. On the other, a recruitment process that places much emphasis on the candidate experience and expertise leads to more competence which in turn lead to quality of services delivery (Onchari.,2014, 42). Therefore, the organization that ensures applicants meet the job requirement are likely to accumulate a large pool of capable and competent employees. In the end, they deliver superior output.

However, St Georges have failed to train their staff. The inspection revealed that most of its staff lack the knowledge and skills in effective service delivery. For example, there was a complaint that some employees could administer medicine to patients. They committed a lot of mistakes. The report of regulatory authority also indicated that the facility management employed a flawed recruitment process. It failed to undertake a background check of staff to determine their capability and competence. As a result, the nursing home ended up with a pool of staff who are unable to meet the expectation of the patients. Based on the above analysis, it is clear that St. George lacks capable and competent staff to increase the quality of services delivery. The management should, therefore, employ any of the above strategies to restore the performance of the facility.

Asses the possible impact that one of the possible techniques will have on the St. George Nursing Home in terms of delivering consistent and effective quality management.

Given the outcome of the inspections, it is necessary to undertake an improvement of St. George Nursing Home operations to enhance the quality of service delivery. However, to realize improved performance, the organization need to employ the right technique of implementing the necessary changes for improvement. In this case, the management would employ Kaizen technique of quality management. Kaizen work on the principle that the desired output is achieved by changing the status quo. However, the desired output is realized through the process of gradual change in the organization (Beckford.,2016, 180). In this case, the management identifies one opportunity for change, find a befitting solution and then proceed to another problem. As the organization implements gradual changes, the quality of service delivery increases, thus leading to better performances.

The Kaizen principle works best for an organization with multiple challenges but is striving to realize superior output performance. Also, it applies to a problem which requires multiple solutions to receive the best outcome. For example, it can aid in improving human resources, technology, material, and process with the intention of deriving superior outcome (Beckford.,2016, 180). For example, given a situation where an organization is reporting low profitability, they can use the technique to implement a cost-effective technology, efficient process, and improving the productivity of human resources. However, the changes will be undertaken sequentially with each action resulting in a better outcome until the moment when the organization realizes the outcome.

Given the nature of the problem facing St. George Nursing Home, this technique will aid in effective quality management. By offering a training program to existing staff on the skills and knowledge required to offer the right attention to dementia patients, the facility will achieve the first major in ensuring it offers quality care. The 20 patients who were not served effectively will receive their expected attention. On the other hand, through training of current staff, the facility will report a decline in the cases of poor administration of medicine. Since the existing staff already know better performance, the next step will be to reconsider the recruitment process by performing the pre-employment check to check the competence and suitability of potential staff.

References

Beckford, J., 2016. Quality: a critical introduction. Routledge.

Mosadeghrad, M.,2012. A Conceptual Framework for Quality Care. British Institute of Technology and E-Commerce.

Nda, M.M., Fard, YR., & Yazdanifard, R., 2013. The Impact of Employee Training and Development on Employee Productivity. Global Journal of Commerce and Management Perspective.

Onchari, R., Iravo, R., & Munene, C.E., 2014. Effect of Recruitment Strategies on Service Delivery in Local Authorities in Kenya. A Case of Nyamira County, Kenya. Journal of Business and Management.

Onyango, W.J. & Wanyoike, M.D., 2014. Effect of Training on Employee Performance: A Survey of Health Workers in Siaya County. European Journal of Material Science.