HCA 615 Gateway Hospital Case Study

Sample Answer

Organizational development plays a paramount role in ensuring that health care facilities become more efficient. According to Borkowski (2011), organizational development denotes a systematic procedure that is adopted to handle organizational challenges or execute certain change stratagems. The Gateway Hospital Case Study reveals the necessity for the hospital to implement these change strategies because of the multiplicity of issues that it is experiencing.

The average turnover of the hospital is extremely high whereas prospective professionals are not willing to join the facility. Consequently, a shortage of departmental personnel has been witnessed jeopardizing the operations of the affected sections. Moreover, Gateway Hospital’s remuneration structure falls below the national level in terms of annual pay increases and salaries. Further, the hospital is staring at a financial crisis due to factors such as Medicare cutbacks and alterations in private insurance schemes.

As such, it becomes imperative for the hospital to hire a consultant in order to change the situation and make it profitable as well as culturally healthy. Thus, as the consultant of Gateway Hospital leadership, the author will suggest relevant OD interventions, the necessary skillset for the consultant as well as establishing an appropriate timeline for executing the strategies.

OD Interventions

Borkowski (2011) posits that several organizational development interventions exist to cure situations that have the potential to undermine a health care facility. Indeed, these changes may entail multiple levels within a healthcare organization as well as a change in its culture that should be driven by the leadership. Consequently, these strategic organizational changes have fundamental ramifications not only on its culture but also performance.

Human Resources Intervention

As per the case study, the organization’s health care personnel appear to have issues among them as a result of the deteriorating work environment of Gateway Hospital. Thus, the adoption of the human resources intervention becomes necessary. The case study reveals that Gateway Hospital is characterized by poor teamwork, low morale of employees, as well as absence of trust in the hospital leadership. The hospital has attempted to solve the leadership issues by terminating the employment contract of several leaders yet they still persist (Borowski, 2011).

Therefore, the human process intervention will lead to the improvement of the interpersonal relationships among the employees. In order to achieve that, the author will need to solve the fundamental communication processes issues affecting the organization. The improvement of organizational communication will entail the introduction of communication training seminars for Gateway Hospital employees (Anderson, 2016). The strategy will focus on the leadership of the hospital since effective communication greatly affects the performance of an organization as well as influencing individual success.

Moreover, team building undertakings will similarly be adopted to improve the interpersonal relationships among the employees. During this strategy, numerous undertakings including games as well as tasks that are performed within teams will be preferred. The author will suggest creating new teams composed of employees from various departments as well as maintaining the existing ones.

Team building exercises lead to increased ability to offer solutions to problems, enhanced non-verbal and verbal communication skills, as well as establishing trust among employees. The continuous team building exercises will make the employees to become more comfortable with each other, improve team trust and also create a togetherness that positively impacts their efficiency.

Human Resource Management Intervention

The human resource management intervention addresses wide scale management issues on the human resource scale. The Gateway Hospital administered interviews to some of the employees that were leaving for other health care facilities. As the consultant, the present author will adopt the results of those interviews. The purpose of utilizing the results will encompass comprehending the reasons as to why the employees were leaving as well as why the morale among the hospital staff was low.

Moreover, the focus group and teamwork strategies will also offer certain insights into the challenges of teamwork and ineffective communication affecting Gateway Hospital (Smither, Houston, & McIntire, 2016). The results received from the two strategies will then enable the author to execute a certain type of performance management system intervention tool. The system will allow the author to examine if the hospital has any kind of goal-setting and whether they have a reward system for their employee and also enhance the system based on the revelations of the intervention tool (Borkowski, 2011).

The financial health of the hospital makes the adoption of a monetary reward system unfeasible; therefore, the author will recommend a non-monetary reward system such as performance appraisal and recognition in front of other personnel as this can significantly enhance the morale at the hospital.

Total Quality Management Intervention

The purpose of this kind of OD intervention entails facilitating teamwork for reasons of offering solutions to issues. To implement it, the teams will have to meet regularly to be equipped with tools and skills to help the employees to offer solutions to various matters under their purview. The total quality management intervention will also ensure that the communication skills of the Gateway Hospital personnel improve.

Moreover, it offers a great environment that encourages employees to share knowledge (Borkowski, 2011). Thus, using this intervention to build teams that address a specific matter including poor turnover, poor reputation, and employee recruitment will enhance the hospital’s standing in the health care sector as they will provide solutions.

Structural Change Intervention

Poor staff morale and managerial distrust are two of the issues that the employee exit survey highlighted. Structural change within the organization is evident as various leaders have been relieved of their duties. Thus, it becomes imperative to find their replacements and train them on matters such as effective communication stratagems and how to effectively discharge their duties.

Timeline

The consultant would propose an original 3-month phase to commence the execution of the various interventions. The 3-month period will entail the implementation of communication training as well as team building exercises. Moreover, different groups comprising of staff from varied departments will be formulated so as to establish solutions to the issues that are afflicting Gateway Hospital such as high turnover and staff morale. Further, the 90-day period will also see the employment of new leaders as well as their training to give the structural and cultural change being pursued a foundation.

At the end of the 3-month period, the consultant will determine the levels of success of various strategies through tools such as employee survey and interviews. Also, data on the rates of vacancy and the recruitment of new personnel will be analyzed to determine whether the stratagems proposed by the present author as the consultant will have worked. However, should the hospital require further interventions after the 3-month period, the consultant will hatch a new plan to address the areas that will require improvement.

Organizational Development Practitioner

An array of skillset is required if one has to successfully execute an organizational change. The practitioner’s fundamental role involves guiding the organization in the process of instituting change. The practitioner will achieve this via teaching the necessary tools and skills for the success of the initiative. The necessity for proficiency in interpersonal skills is evident in the Gateway Hospital case. In addition to financial crisis, the hospital is characterized by low employee morale, absence of effective communication plans, and lack of teamwork among its personnel.

Thus, if the practitioner has excellent listening and communication skills, they will facilitate the various strategies such as team building exercises and training seminars for the hospital’s employees. Further, the practitioner will require to have influential skills and the ability to positively handle challenges due to the low morale at the hospital. Whereas the above skills are relevant, possessing technical skills in education and training team building undertakings have similar importance to the practitioner. However, the interpersonal skill will be of greater value to the consultant.

Conclusion

The multiplicity of issues facing the Gateway Hospital such as low morale among the employees, ineffective communication from leadership, poor teamwork and discouraging reputation necessitated an organizational development intervention. Using various strategies such as human resources intervention, total quality management intervention, structural change intervention and human resources intervention, the adoption of various strategies such as team building exercise and communication training will occur for a period of 90-days.

However, the organizational change practitioner requires to have great interpersonal skills among others to effectively drive the organizational development process.

References

• Anderson, D. L. (2016). Organization development The process of leading organizational change. Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications.
• Borkowski, N. (2011). Organizational behavior in health care. Sudbury, MA Jones and Bartlett.
• Smither, R., Houston, J., & McIntire, S. (2016). Organization development Strategies for changing environments. Abingdon, UK Routledge.