The professional level and quality of medical management are primarily related to the safety of medical care. However, one cannot ignore the fact that both the safety and quality of medical services are closely related to the quality of management of a medical organization. The effectiveness of this management can only be guaranteed by the figure of the chief physician as the main head of the clinic.
Healthcare Leadership and Its Impact on Patient’s Experience
The importance of leaders in the management of scientific and practical health care institutions has always been and remains exceptionally high. However, it increases even more during the transition period, when certainty is lost, and the system of habitual relations, management, and financing schemes changes – such as during a worldwide pandemic, for example. Under these conditions, the survival and development prospects of many teams completely depend on the leader and their qualities. In healthcare, a leader does not directly influence the patient’s experience; however, it is precisely the leader who organizes proper algorithms of care within their team. The whole process of a patient’s treatment depends on the leader’s actions and decisions that they make after analyzing the situation.
Why Patient’s Experience is a Critical Issue
The patient is the central figure of healthcare; all the efforts of medical staff are focused on providing quality care for them. A patient’s experience is crucial to any healthcare organization due to the fact that it directly impacts the treatment. If the patient is not satisfied with their experience, it may result in refusal of further treatment. The emotional bond between the healthcare professional and the patient should develop on mutual trust; thus, it is important to ensure the best experience for the patient.
The Senior Leader’s Role in Patient’s Experience
While the local department leaders monitor and regulate their own sectors, the senior leader has to overlook every management process in the clinic and intervene where necessary. A positive patient’s experience is influenced by the senior leader’s actions just as much as by the local ones. Therefore, the senior leader holds responsibility not only to the organization but also to their patients. Their main role, first of all, refers to the development of the ideology of the organization and the formulation of the corresponding mission. The absence of a full-fledged and clear mission for a medical organization will inevitably lead it to over-commercialization.
Implications for the Organization if the Patient’s Experience Is Not a Priority
If the patient’s well-being is not a strategic priority, the quality of care may deteriorate quickly, as the healthcare organization will be focused instead on profits or advertising its services. Therefore, if the patient’s experience is not put in the first place, the leaders’ actions will be misguided and misdirected. The implications for the organization can be grave in that case – from the best outcome being the patient’s dissatisfaction with its services to the worst being the patient’s deteriorating health and possible death.
Potential Signs of Patient’s Dissatisfaction and the Areas It Impacts
Productive and healthy relationships between the doctor and the patients are the basis of successful treatment. The first and main things that are the basis of successful medical management are the knowledge and ability of the doctor to communicate with the patient and provide safe and high-quality modern medical services. Thus, it is important to recognize the signs of a patient’s dissatisfaction to resolve them timely in order to prevent possible conflict. Such signs can include verbal expression of displeasure, refusal of doctor’s offers and further treatment, as well as leaving the hospital before completing the treatment. The patient’s dissatisfaction affects, first of all, the nursing staff – it is the nurses who receive the first blow of a patient’s anger and frustration. Secondly, when the patient is not content with the treatment, they may also approach their assigned physician to demand other options or even start a conflict. All this affects the internal microclimate of the organization and the discipline of the staff and, as a result, the effectiveness of the medical and economic activities of the organization itself.
Service Line Management and Challenges Associated with It
The basis for the success of any organization, but especially in the healthcare sector, is the high quality of management. The core of any management strategy is each employee’s clear awareness of their responsibility and their role in the organization’s achievement of desirable results. In healthcare, service line management helps improve the delivery of the services provided by a hospital or a clinic by introducing specific, patient-centered care for every department.
The main challenge associated with the service line management structure is the organization of interdisciplinary care. In service line management, each line is an area of healthcare services that offer specific care. Thus, the managing lead needs to build interdepartmental ties to ensure the patient can get the best care possible. Another issue that stands acute in service line management is the rising cost of healthcare services; many patients cannot afford the treatment due to its costs. Moreover, the lack of professional and talented staff also contributes to the issue – the waiting lines are too long due to the receding amount of nurses and physicians, and the prices for the services grow exponentially.
Service Lines within the Healthcare System
Service line management is a logical development of the healthcare system, as it offers an improved delivery of medical services. Overall, a service line is a specific way of providing medical assistance based on the care-centered approach. Usually, a service line is focused on certain diseases or patient groups and includes financial and strategic features that help deliver targeted care as efficiently as possible. Often, service lines are connected with the state structures to optimize treatment costs and improve the management of the allocated funds. The success of a healthcare organization is connected to the accurate operation of the service lines, thus, their management is at the forefront of the research today. Properly organized service lines allow the healthcare facility to deliver medical services in the most effective and timely manner.
Healthcare Management prior to Service Line System
Before the introduction of service line management, healthcare sector used the departmental approach where the care was specified by separate areas of activities. Each department operated separately from others which created blocks in communication due to the teams working in individual “bubbles” without properly interacting with each other. Thus, service line management was introduced to address the issue of miscommunication, creating interdepartmental teams based on different patients’ groups and diseases.
Required Changes in Hierarchy
To ensure that the management is the most effective, changes in the management lead should be made. First of all, for each interdisciplinary team, an administrative manager must be assigned, as the dyadic model requires that two leaders work together: medical and administrative. Moreover, the organization’s overall managing lead should ensure that the current director is knowledgeable and has the right operational skills. From this point, the director should build a strong inside network of leaders that actively communicate with each other.
Pros and Cons of Service Line Management
From the dyad management model’s point of view, there are significant pros of the service lines approach. First of all, it allows building interdisciplinary teams that can operate within a wide scope of medical assistance. Secondly, service lines allow to integrate effective management strategies into them and create strong collaborations due to the fact that the service line teams do not exist in “bubbles”. However, there are also cons of such an approach: team members need to constantly stay in touch and organize their work in consideration of each other which can prove difficult during actual, time-limited activity. Moreover, every team would need a strong and considerate leader who is able to be both a healthcare professional and effective manager.
Cultural Shift Required for Adopting Dyad Management
Adopting a dyad management model might prove to be difficult when the organizational culture of an organization does not support innovation and inclusion. Organizational culture can be considered as one of the main tools of any modern management organization and staff development. It implies a certain set of values, norms, and rules that form the guidelines for behavior and actions taken by employees. It is through the organizational culture that every staff member knows how to interact with others and with the external environment. Ji and Yoon (2021) also suggest that organizational competitiveness comes from the utilization of strategic human resources nowadays. Thus, first of all, a shift in the organizational culture would be needed to implement a dyad management model.
The Importance of Employee
In such a culture, the employee is considered just as important as the leader due to the fact that the whole process of service line is built on the professionalism of the staff. As the service lines provide an interdisciplinary approach, it is extremely important that the employees understand that communication is crucial to their work. Kraśnicka et al. (2017) state that support for innovations from the managing lead provides stimuli for new solutions and helps effectively implement creative ideas. The overall success of the organization depends heavily on employees’ professionalism and ability to communicate.
Support Functions and Their Importance
Financial support remains one of the most important support functions for a service line. According to Kros and Brown (2013), “in maximizing the utilization of resources, health care organizations must focus planning and control efforts on the most expensive resources” (p. 463). Without proper funding, the line cannot be provided with the best modern equipment, and the quality of care would ultimately deteriorate. Another crucial support function is the management of human resources, as each service line requires professional and talented staff. In the medical business, following advanced technologies is one of the most important factors of competitive advantage because the patient is looking for the best that is in the field of diagnostics and treatment.
Specific Resources of an Effective Service Line Director
The service line leader needs to be culturally competent – the care should be culturally tailored to properly address each aspect of the patient’s background. Another resource of the leader’s effectiveness is their knowledge of management strategies and how to apply them in each individual case to ensure the most productive care for the patient. Without cultural and managerial competence, the director cannot provide
The Role of Healthcare Leader in Organization’s Quality Improvement
In modern conditions, the most relevant in the field of management, along with decision-making to eliminate problems, is the management of change. To constantly improve the quality of care, the leader needs to focus on the future while simultaneously managing current processes. Guven (2020) adds that “it is the process of discovering innovations that are based on strategic intrapreneurship and future competitive advantages” (p. 234). Changes often seem spontaneous and unpredictable, but change management principles can instill a sense of direction, order, and expectation. By focusing on the future, leaders must be able to deal with the inevitable challenges that stand in the way of progress and development.
The Impact of Quality Management on Organization’s Success and the Role of Leader in It
At the same time, the introduction of an innovative program can upset the existing balance, releasing both the forces of support and the forces of resistance. The leader can and should anticipate the emergence of these forces. By identifying all these forces, the leader must develop a strategy for managing them, aimed either at strengthening the forces of movement, or at weakening the forces of resistance, or both at the same time. Taking into account external and internal factors and conditions, the leader must learn to manage resistance, treating it as a natural process.
The Benefit of Management Rounding
Thus, at present, management rounding is of particular importance, and a true leader must have the appropriate knowledge, skills, abilities, and qualities in order not to ruin the system during the period of changes. On the contrary, the leader needs to find at every level of management options that can prevent and even improve the quality of the health system, health services, teams and institutions. By showing respect for opponents, studying the nature of resistance, developing a rational approach, and addressing the arising issues, the leader can properly manage the processes of development and improvement within the organization.
References
Guven, B. (2020). The integration of strategic management and intrapreneurship: Strategic intrapreneurship from theory to practice. Business and Economics Research Journal, 11(1), 229–245. Web.
Ji, Y., & Yoon, H. J. (2021). The effect of servant leadership on self-efficacy and innovative behavior: Verification of the moderated mediating effect of vocational calling. Administrative Sciences, 11(2), 39. Web.
Kraśnicka, T., Głód, W., & Wronka-Pośpiech, M. (2017). Management innovation, pro-innovation organizational culture and enterprise performance: testing the mediation effect. Review of Managerial Science, 12(3), 737–769. Web.
Kros, J. F., & Brown, E. C. (2013). Health Care Operations and Supply Chain Management: Operations, Planning, and Control. Jossey-Bass/John Wiley & Sons, Inc.