Organizational Effectiveness in Healthcare - Paper Example

Healthcare entails management and maintenance strategies that improve health through the provision of preventions to casuals of diseases or illness, diagnosis as well as treatment in human beings. Moreover, only healthcare providers like professions and physician associates can provide the care needed at all levels of primary, secondary and tertiary. Healthcare access varies from one country to the other given the different health policies that have been put in place as well as other conditions like economic and even social. In service delivery, health organizations must have systems that are suitable for meeting and caring for the needy population. However, the healthcare industry must ensure that its team, as well as the administration, has reliable healthcare systems and networks to give quality care to satisfy the patients to serve. For this to be possible, the healthcare organization should put up well-functioning systems which entail a competent workforce, channels of reliable information to aid in decision making, health facilities as well as reliable logistics for delivering medicine and other vital health care commodities.

Organizational Effectiveness

Organizational effectiveness is the coherency an organization or a company can achieve its objectives and goals through evaluation of how best it can produce its products and how the products affect the target population. Over the years, healthcare organizations have continued to expand leading to competition to have resources among different health organizations. While health practitioners argue for their agencies to set up effective strategies that will highly promote health operations, challenges from boards, beneficiaries and donors continue to pose as a hindrance to the achievement of effectiveness. Various studies show how organizational theory plays a significant role in literature through narrowing down to the concept of effectiveness

For Forty years, researchers have continued to struggle in defining the real concept of effectiveness in organizations, and this has made scholars to decide on burying the idea when researching on organizations development practices. However, in recent years, scholars have come up with a contingent definition of the concept of effectiveness in line with the organizations' practices and mission in service to the target population and not on its impact as initially insinuated (Ehreth 1998 p 297-298). With the pressure that comes with the defining the full concept of effectiveness assumptions that organizational effectiveness should base on multiple criteria that evaluates the means and ends of duties have risen. Given this, the assumption argues for an organization need to be flexible in choosing the criteria and model to use in performance. (Robins 1983)

Broadly, organizational effectiveness is mostly applicable to nonprofit companies that only aim at bettering the lives of people regardless of the funding decisions that sources base on in provision of support. In healthcare, most Foundations base on the effectiveness of the organization before embarking on the provision of funds as well as investments. Regarding the investors' interest in the organizational effectiveness before investing in the business, it is therefore advisable that organizations should first evaluate the models of effectiveness before any decision to be made. No company can be effective in its services if it does not embrace any of the effective models

Models of Organizational Effectiveness

Goal Model

The model is based on the organization's vision as major rational plans and arrangements that institute the achievement of set goals. In this model, the concept of effectiveness is measurable regarding outcomes accomplished by the organization implying that major focus is on the objectives and goals to achieve (Etzioni 1960 p 257-278)

Strategic-Constituencies Model

An organization constitutes of internal and external factors that act as negotiators of complex constraints that affect referents (Goodman et al. 1977). Constituencies should be satisfied as they are the ones in total control of the organization's performance.

Resource Dependency Model

The model emphasizes on the strategies like methods of input, acquiring resources as well as processing for the organization's achievements. Regarding the concept of organization, the use of open system approach applies to parts of effectiveness such as inputs, outputs and even processing (Yuchtman and Seashore 1967 p 377-395).

Competing-Values Model

The evaluation of trade-offs is through values set on the ground to fight pressure from the external environment (Quinn and Rohrbaugh 1983p 363-377). In this model competing values are focused on to remove dilemma that might hinder the effectiveness of an organization

Legitimacy Model

The achievements of an organization are based on the type of activities that are carried out. In this case, the legitimacy of operations determines the organization's survival on the market.

The organization should first evaluate the effectiveness model that best favors the organization and the market before embarking on its application. Scholars have argued on organizational effectiveness models that are efficient for companies to use in development. Bluedorn (1980 p 477-496) argues for the goal model in that organizations can be successful and productive when they chose to make strategies of development through their set goals. According to Bluedorn, goals of a given company are the best drivers of change and efficacy in servicing the population and investors mostly when the targets are transparent, timely and measurable. However, Yuchman and Seashore argue for resource dependence model which provides that the effectiveness of organizations is mainly on the way they acquire vital resources that are needed in the service. According to Yuchman and Seashore, an organization should put in mind how it can survive the market if its strategies on the input and output sources. Besides the different views by various scholars regarding models, Organizational effectiveness continues to be a major reflection in the concept of constructive perspective given the terms involved in the assessment as well as conceptualization. According to March and Sutton(1997), the true meaning of organizational effectiveness varies from one scholars to another in the process of searching for structural causal that represent major themes in organizational performance. Different concepts of effectiveness entail financial-market, profitability, quality of transformations by the firm management and multi-stakeholder satisfaction in boosting performance for the company.

Levels of Organizational effectiveness in health care

Organizational effectiveness conceptualizes on the evolution of issues that are relative to the level of organizational performance. In rating general effectiveness of an organization, empirical investigations were applied given the multiple empirical assessments carried out in the years 1960 to 1980. Whether an organizations performance ranked at local, regional, national or international levels, sophisticated outcomes such as selectivity, achievement and productivity were identified. With the fact that Organizational effectiveness is mostly associated with achieving objectives, health organizations mainly emphasizes on carrying out all health related duties at all given levels to produce results that are positive yet under little energy and resources.

Local level in organizational effectiveness entails health organizations positioning themselves in a health environment that promotes suitable working implications to the organization, locals as well as employees. According to Johnson and Baum (2001), health organizations must first promote models that the locals can rely on to be able to enjoy the opportunities that come with health care systems. In achieving effectiveness at this level, health organizations can embark on implementing health programs that can help in fostering healthy behaviors as well as lifestyles that employees can form a healthy lifestyle model for both the patients and local community. The vitality of having local environment leads to high performance of a healthy organization that positively affects the people around as well the organization. In creation of a healthy workplace environment, three major aspects; ethics legalities as well as economics are vital in promotion of health and safety among employees.

In view of the regional level, an organization enlarges its duties to a wider area but within the same continent. For success and achievement, an organization has to set up goals that are easy and adoptable to the dynamic environment to serve. Cox (1992 p99) emphasizes on the quality of work to be done playing a major role in the achievement of an organization given the type of environment the organization is serving. The decision for a health organization to serve the audience regionally depends on vital factors like social, political and economic. The regions should be politically stable before the healthcare organizations to efficiently serve the patients. Additionally, organizational effectiveness can be achievable in regional level when technology is well established in all the given areas for easier access to health equipment information, processes and health worksites.

In achieving effectiveness at national level, health care organizations should be well funded and economically stable since the audience to serve is large. Langfield-Smith evaluates OHHAS as well as development procedure scale in determination of the Health Promotion status of health organizations that are nationally serving the population (Langfield 1997 p207). With the duty to serve the nation, health organizations can achieve effectiveness through maximizing reliable and valid tests of variations. The four subscales of variety are leadership and policy, physical surrounding, health culture and resources as well as activity. The subscale of leadership and policy depends on the senior managements mission in developing strategies that lead to health positions through addressing issues that can affect the performance of the organization from the wider environment to serve. In working nationally, an organization should ensure adequacy of health resources as well as activities that will promote not only organizational effectiveness but also positive results among the population. However, an organization that has enough resources and excellent professionals can decide to go internationally to achieve effectiveness. It implies that the health organization will be ready to serve the people beyond the borders given the state of the management, available resources as well as the presence of trained personnel. Evaluation of the three levels (local, regional and national) exhibits no similarities given that the wider the environment to serve, the bigger the changes and strategies in boosting performance. For instance, a health organization serving at local level can operate under the presence of minimal resources and still satisfy the patients unlike in levels of regional and national that needs addition of health resources.

Aspects of organizational effectiveness of a University Hospital

A hospital is an institution where ill people receive medical attention. The institution involves professionals who carry out surgical, psychiatric, obstetric and treatment of the sick population. A University hospital in this case is defined as a hospital that is an affiliate of a university. The university hospital play a major role in health environment through provision of training medical professionals like nurses and doctors as well as provision of health care to patients. A Uni...