Introduction
In this paper, the organizational system of Baptist Health (BH) will be analyzed. Baptist Health is a community, faith-based hospital that serves the Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia community. The analysis of Baptist Hospital’s organizational system will be based on Collin’s framework for advanced organizational analysis.
It will focus on the hospital’s leadership, organizational structure, culture, and level of greatness. Additionally, the hospital’s mission, vision, values and goals will be discussed. This analysis is based on the premise that an organization’s readiness to change depends on its ability to discover how to nature its members’ commitment, as well as, capacity to learn.
Baptists Hospital’s Mission, Vision and Goals
The mission of the hospital is to “continue the healing ministry of Christ by providing accessible, quality health care services at a reasonable cost in an atmosphere that fosters respect and compassion” (Baptist Health, 2012, pp. 1-23). The hospital’s model of nursing is based on principles of human dignity, the importance of faith, as well as, caring for self and others.
The nurses focus on achieving professional excellence by exercising compassion, respect and stewardship in the use of the hospital’s resources. Thus, the hospital’s nursing philosophy promotes teamwork and the achievement of the common goal of providing safe and scientifically-based quality health care.
Baptist Health’s vision is “to be the destination health system that is preferred by the residents of our region because it is the most comprehensive and accessible health care provider” (Baptist Health, 2012, pp. 1-23). To realize this vision, the hospital will hire the best talent to provide quality health care through the innovative application of modern technology and collaboration among nurses. In this context, the hospital focuses on providing health care through a patient-centered approach.
The hospital’s mission and vision are based on the following values. First, the hospital focuses on community advocacy by improving the community’s health through engaging in responsible actions and charity programs. Second, the nurses uphold the principle of respect to the patients and colleagues by maintaining high standards of dignity, compassion, as well as, integrity. Third, the nurses focus on excellence by doing their best to exceed the patients’ quality expectations. Finally, the hospital promotes stewardship by providing cost-effective and high-quality health care by using resources in a responsible manner.
Leadership
Baptist Hospital uses the participative leadership style. In this leadership style, key stakeholders such as, subordinates, managers and supervisors are involved in the decision-making process (Yan, 2011, pp. 393-408). This is contrary to an autocratic leadership style where the manager or leader makes all decisions on his own.
Participative leadership is based on the following assumptions. First, involving all stakeholders in decision-making enhances understanding of the issues to be articulated. Second, employees tend to be committed to action if they are involved in making decisions regarding such actions. Finally, it promotes teamwork by reducing competition among team members.
The use of participative leadership at Baptist Health is based on the hospital’s nursing philosophy which states that “nursing is a profession whose members have the right and responsibility to participate in collaborative decisions affecting their practice” (Baptist Health, 2012, pp. 1-23). Following this philosophy, the management ensures that nurses from all settings participate in decision-making. The decisions made by the nurses are channeled to the management through the shared governance councils.
The purpose of these councils is to enhance provision of patient-centered care through a cost-effective, knowledgeable and evidence based approach. The participation of nurses through the councils, promotes system-wide communication and collaboration in order to improve patient care. The participants in the councils include managers, direct care nurses, directors, and nursing education officers among others.
Organization Culture Schein
Culture is defined as the assumptions of group members learning to cope with internal and external pressures and consequently explaining behaviors and feelings within the organization. There are three levels of culture namely, the artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions (Milarova, 2012, pp. 108-125). Based on these levels, the culture of Baptist Hospital can be described as follows.
The hospital’s artifacts include the use of a common language and involvement in decision-making in order to promote teamwork among the multicultural workforce. Using the latest technology in nursing is at the center of the hospital’s culture. This involves replacing existing equipment with modern ones in order to promote efficiency and provision of high quality health care in a cost-effective manner. Espoused values describe how learning by the nurses reflects the values of the hospital.
The vice president of patient care and chief nursing officer encourage the managers and other nurses to create a legacy of excellence by doing their best to achieve the vision of the organization. Basic assumptions involve promoting consistent delivery of health care at a high standard of quality. This has enabled the nurses to internalize the culture of excellence and stewardship in delivering patient care. Thus, the hospital is defined by its culture of excellence and provision of patient-centered health care.
Baptist Hospital’s Culture for Learning
A learning organization is one where “ people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, new and expansive patterns of thinking are natured, collective aspiration is free and people are continually learning to see the whole together” (Senge, 2010, p. 31). A learning organization is flexible, adaptive and productive, and thus, is able to excel in times of rapid change. Following Senge’s model, the characteristics of Baptist Hospital as a learning organization can be explained as follows.
First a learning organization is characterized with systems thinking which is used to evaluate its performance (Castrillon, 2012, pp. 2-26). At Baptist Hospital, goals and objectives are based on the vision and mission statements. These statements are communicated to all employees during staff orientation. Second, the organization must promote personal mastery or the commitment of individuals to learn (Barr, 2009, pp. 39-53).
Baptist Hospital promotes the culture of learning through on-the-job training and development. These programs are offered on a continuous basis, and the employees are sensitized on their importance. In order to encourage learning, the hospital pays the tuition fee for the degree and masters training programs. Additionally, a differential pay system is used to reward nurses with high educational attainment.
Third, the learning organization must have mental models. These are the assumptions held by the nurses. The organization can only learn if these models are challenged. At BH, assumptions about excellence are challenged by consistently improving the skills of the nurses and acquiring new technologies.
Fourth, there has to be a shared vision among the staff (Agard, 2010, p. 98). This has been achieved by involving nurses in decision-making and collaboration at all levels. Finally, the organization must promote team learning. The hospital promotes team learning by encouraging open communication, knowledge management and dissemination of information. For examples, nurses can access information from online journals and discuss them with other nurses through discussion boards.
Baptist Hospital’s Greatness Level
For an organization to transform itself from being good to being great, it must begin by hiring the best talent to deliver its services. Leaders move from level 1 to level 5 of greatness (Collins, 2011, p. 67). Level five is the highest level of greatness and organizations with such leaders tend to be great by all measures. Most leaders at Baptist Hospital fall in level 4. This is because they are able to galvanize their departments to achieve performance targets in order to realize the vision of the hospital. The leaders have not attained true greatness (level 5) by combining their skills with unique humility.
Consequently, BH has not attained a high level of greatness. The evidence for this is the fact that the hospital has developed a feeling of satisfaction based on past accomplishments. This discourages improvements in health care delivery through innovation and setting higher standards. Additionally, the accomplishments of the hospital include acquisitions of new equipment or information systems. However, these accomplishments have not been accompanied by proportionate improvement in health outcomes.
Baptist Hospital’s Readiness for Change
The hospital is not ready for change as demonstrated by its resistance to change. It can be prepared for change by considering the following measures. To begin with, the management should encourage change valance (Sudharatina & Li, 2004, pp. 163-178). The nurses should value the impending change and consider it to be needed and worthwhile. This promotes commitment that facilitates implementation of the change. Second, there should be change efficacy (Bouckenoughe, 2009, pp. 23-45).
In this context, efficacy is the judgment of perceived ability to carryout a task. Baptist Health should align its task demands to the situational factors and resource availability in order to realize change. In a nutshell, the nurses should be aware of what it takes to implement the change; have the resources to implement it; and be able to implement the change under the prevailing situation. Finally, the hospital’s plan for change should take into account contextual factors.
This includes promoting innovation, learning and risk taking-behavior (Dennis, 2010, pp. 11-13). Additionally, flexible policies and procedures, as well as, positive organizational climate should be promoted.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to analyze the organizational system of Baptist Hospital. The hospital’s mission is to provide excellent health care in a cost-effective manner. This mission is meant to enable the hospital to realize its vision of being the preferred health care provider in the community that it serves. In order to achieve this vision, the hospital uses a participative leadership style to encourage communication and collaboration among the nurses.
Additionally, the organization promotes learning through training and development programs. However, the organization has not achieved a high level of greatness, partly, because of its low readiness to change. This is because the hospital’s training programs are focused on skill improvement rather than change management. Hence, an organization’s readiness to change depends on its ability to discover and nurture the commitment of its members to learn.
References
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