Human resource management is an essential part of the healthcare industry due to the increased demand for qualified medical professionals. The case study of the CEO’s report of General City Hospital demonstrates important shifts and obstacles of the current healthcare system. CEO’s statement was mainly focused on describing relevant key metrics and challenges in human resource management, which hinder the hospital’s overall performance. Recent trends suggest that hospitals are focusing more on customer’s and employee’s satisfaction.
Why was the CEO’s “state of the hospital” report so unique?
General City Hospital’s CEO informed the board of directors that his report was highly different from previous years. The major changes were represented in the form of three crucial market shifts: information technology enhancement, patient satisfaction, and hospital admission (Flynn, Mathis, Jackson, & Valentine, 2014, p. 17). IT improvement was greatly illustrated in the implementation of a new electronic medical record system, which allows the hospital to modernize and automate the background information gathering for each patient.
Besides, General City Hospital was highly concentrated and focused on changing its culture to become more quality-of-care, which means that the given institution puts a critical emphasis on increasing the level of patient care. According to CEO’s report on patient satisfaction, the year-over-year improvement was almost 10%, which is a demonstration of outstanding service (Flynn et al., 2014, p. 18). All these changes were initiated due to healthcare reforms and pressures from government agencies, consumer groups, and insurance companies.
Furthermore, hospital employee admission was an essential task and challenge of General City Hospital due to the lack of four physical therapists and three physician assistants. The scarcity of qualified professionals greatly hinders the hospital’s ability to perform at its best. The given issue diminishes the capability of the organization to serve and provide care for patients in a timely fashion (Flynn et al., 2014, p. 18). It is highly important to understand that the human resource management team is a key factor, which plays a major role in resolving these problems.
Describe the HR elements of the CEO’s report and why these elements are so important in today’s healthcare environment
The healthcare industry is exceedingly labor-intensive, where the main function of employees is to deliver care properly. The most impactful problem of the given case was the lack of medical professionals to fill up the vacancies. It illustrates an example of HR challenges in healthcare. Firstly, there is a significant increase in demand for healthcare workers, which puts HR management in a position to effectively recruit and retain qualified personnel (Flynn et al., 2014, p. 10). Registered nurses (RN), physical therapists, and physician assistants are being the most demanded specialties in the healthcare industry.
Moreover, healthcare professionals are moving towards the self-employment sector, which can be represented as health service businesses and independent practice. The number of competent employees is on the decline due to the emergence of more attractive alternative career paths (Flynn et al., 2014, p. 11). For instance, the work-life balance of workers in the information technology industry is friendlier, and IT companies offer better wages or working conditions. Additionally, the technology sector provides greater opportunities for further career advancement, and it requires less investment in education.
Operation costs in healthcare organizations are mainly distributed in the form of employee benefits and wages. Therefore, HR management’s most important priority is to regulate employee numbers, skill mix, and salaries (Flynn et al., 2014, p. 12). All these factors result in an increase in the quality of care due to the competitive work conditions provided for medical professionals. Besides, human resource management cannot overlook the work-life imbalance problem of healthcare worker, because more attractive career paths are emerging. Thus, HR management should focus on effective staffing, and increase of generous compensation and benefits for medical professionals.
In conclusion, it is highly important to realize the current changes in the healthcare sector. The workforce flow is greatly shifting towards the information and technology industry, which offers better wages and working conditions. Additionally, hospitals are focusing more on the quality of patient care due to the pressure from interested parties. Hospital human resource management’s primary goal is to recruit qualified experts and retain them with better benefits.
Reference
Flynn, W. J., Mathis, R. L., Jackson, J. H., & Valentine, S. R. (2014). Healthcare Human Resource Management (3rd ed.). United States of America: Cengage Learning.