Have you ever wondered why there’s always this aura of disorder within healthcare facilities despite necessary documentation, follow-ups, training, and whatnots? Well, administrative shortcomings are a part of every business, and the healthcare sector is no exception.
No hospital administrator will deny that hospitals have complex organizational structures. Thus, even a minor communication gap between the clinical staff and administration can become a significant hindrance to improving healthcare procedures and protocols. However, implementing stringent administrative processes on an organizational level is imperative to ensure that healthcare facilities are operating as they should.
Failure to deal with everyday problems such as inadequate hospital supplies may be frustrating for the clinical staff. But inefficient compliance with patient-centered procedures can have a drastic impact on the healthcare facility’s reputation. After all, someone’s life might be at risk.
Therefore, paying attention to administrative issues is essential to keep the whole system from collapsing. And here are a few tips to improvise on procedures, be it employee-centered or patient-centered within a healthcare facility.
Hire The Right Professionals to Do The Job
Healthcare is a business that specializes in providing solutions to health-related problems. Therefore, like any other business, a healthcare facility requires people with relevant administrative work experience and the right qualification to seamlessly run the operations. Stakeholders and business owners should invest in hiring professionals with ample work experience and education related to healthcare to ensure efficiency and proper management.
The best part is that people aspiring to join the healthcare industry have several educational paths to choose from today. There are a plethora of healthcare-related degrees that provide specialized education in non-clinical roles. These cover subjects from public health to healthcare administration, among many others. At the post-grad level, both programs train individuals to perform in various positions to facilitate frontline healthcare workers. However, the scope may differ. An MPH grad focuses on disease prevention and research, whereas an MHA grad focuses more on healthcare management, leadership, and the delivery of quality patient care. We don’t mean to say that one is less critical to the system than the other. But when decided between mph vs mha for improving hospital administration, the latter is a better choice.
Define Roles and Encourage Sharing of Responsibility
One of the main reasons most healthcare facilities lack adequate patient-centered care is staff members disregarding their roles. Most often than not, many tasks are left unattended due to employees believing it is not their job but someone else’s. Doctors think it a nurse’s duty to check on trivial details, the front seat members think it is up to the peons to ensure the cleanliness, and the cycle repeats. The entire workforce plays ‘pass the pillow’ and blames each other in case of mishaps and mismanagement. This blame-game hinders a collaborative approach to delivering quality patient care along with creating several unnecessary administrative shortfalls.
To successfully manage a healthcare facility, it is imperative that everyone recognizes their roles and performs them with dedication. But it is equally important that everyone works as a team. Sure, the janitor is responsible for ensuring cleanliness. But if a managerial staff member sees some trash outside of the can, there’s no harm in putting it where it belongs.
Define Objectives
Not just hospitals, but companies belonging to all industrial sectors fix goals for their workforce. When there are objectives clearly outlined, employees are motivated to work their way towards attaining them, both on individual and collective levels. After all, every employee aims to hit a benchmark and secure an opportunity for professional growth. This is only possible if the organization itself is thriving.
Healthcare administrators must recognize underlying bottlenecks within the system and set objectives accordingly. For instance, if communication is a problem in the hospital, set goals that would tie employees together by requiring them to work in teams, organize workshops to improve communication skills. If understaffing is a problem, devise a strategy to manage frontline workers’ workload so that the burden of work is distributed equally, or hire more staff accordingly. Set assessment criteria, scores per floor, and ensure participation. Help them rise to achieve administrative excellence.
Set Clear Rules
Goals can be considered optional, but rules are not! They are essential pillars upon which effective administration depends within a healthcare facility.
Have you ever wondered why become a healthcare administrator when people can just walk into a hospital and get the help they need from a practitioner? Simple; the healthcare administrator creates these rules, structural guidelines, and SOPs and ensures that everyone adheres to them. This includes healthcare professionals and patients alike. Without these rules, there is a high chance frontline workers will become complacent, patients will be confused, and chaos will sweep across the facility.
It is best to ensure that the guiding framework set for ethical and practical patient care is easy to understand for everyone. Remember, coherence is the key. When you plan to implement a new set of guidelines on an organizational level, write them down and work towards making them as straightforward as possible. Include examples on how to accomplish the objectives for improved patient-centered care, such as the family’s involvement in decision-making and physical comfort during the stay.
Reward The Standout Performers
Once you have set job-specific goals and KPIs, it is time to reward the winners for motivating them. It will encourage standout performers to do even better in the future and nudge the onlookers to strive to rise to the occasion. Numerous studies show how employees’ performance improves when they know their efforts are recognized, appreciated, and rewarded.
Listen Keenly to Patient Advocates
Patient advocates are individuals who ensure that the patient receives the deserved treatment. They spend plenty of their time listening to the patient’s concerns, enabling them to have a deep understanding of their condition. Coordinating with these individuals helps hospital administrators and frontline workers gain a better insight into the patient’s state, which they might miss otherwise. The feedback from the advocates helps in the useful application of the procedural changes and makes an actual impact on the overall patient-centered care environment.
Conclusion
Today, medical facilities are more vulnerable to judgment more than ever. The soaring costs, high awareness of medical fallacies, and the escalating number of medically insured members have forced healthcare facilities to improve their administration and management. As we said, healthcare is a business, and customers demand satisfaction. A lapse in delivering quality patient care either due to medical oversight or administrative negligence can be fatal to the patient and the facility’s reputation. Today, with technology and automation of numerous mundane administrative tasks, improving patient-centered care and safety, cost-cutting and efficiency have become more achievable than before. Take advantage.