Nursing Leadership in St Marys Medical Centre - Essay Example

Introduction Each organization has its own type of organization structure; an organization structure of an organization is determined normally by the size of the organization and the type of service and products the organization deals in. The type of leadership style of the organization is also another factor that determines the structure of the organization. Hatch (1993) describes organization structure as the manner in which an organization is organized in relation to management. He further notes that, organizational structure highly determines the performance and success of an organization. It has been noted that, most organizations collapses because of poor organization structure that fail to reflect the goals and objectives of those organizations. Health care organization This study paper is going to examine St Mary’s Medical Centre, and explore its organization structure mission’s values and visions of the hospital. The paper will also examine the culture and climate or the organization and how it affects communication, leadership and nursing delivery services. St Mary’s Medical Centre is a medical centre sponsored by Sisters of Mercy and also Catholic Healthcare West. The medical centre was established in 1857, currently it is among the biggest not-for-profit, community – based medical care providers in Northern California. The hospital has 403 beds and has more than 500 physicians on its staff. The hospital is reputed for quality, patient satisfaction, and personalized care and outstanding clinical outcomes. (St Mary’s, 2007) Missions of the hospital The hospital is committed to the following missions; Delivering empathetic, best-quality and inexpensive health care services Offering service and advocating for those who are poor disenfranchised Collaborating with other within the community to enhance the quality of life(St (Mary’s, 2007) Vision The vision of the hospital is to have; A developing a diverse health care ministry reputed for high quality and devoted to increasing access to those in need. (St Mary’s, 2007) Values St Mary’s Medical Centre is devoted to provide best –quality, inexpensive health care. The hospital value; Dignity; respecting the worth and value of each individual Collaboration; working in partnership with those who support similar values and have same vision to attain shared goals Justice; campaigning for social changes in ways which promote respect for all Stewardship; to cultivate resources of the hospital to enhance healing and totality Excellence; surpassing expectations through innovation and teamwork (St Mary’s, 2007) Organizational chart of St Mary’s hospital medical centre The type of organizational structure of St Mary’s Medical Centre The hospital organizational structure is a hierarchical type; this type of structure allows dividing the organizational in to smaller divisions that are managed by various managers who have a number of employees reporting directly to the specific managers. Burrell & Morgan (1979), states that this kind of organizational structure is more effective and well defined in terms of leadership ladder. The roles and duties of each manager are well set and the structure gives its employees a great chance of developing professionalism in as one of the key missions of the hospital and also ensures better service delivery to the patients. (Burrell & Morgan, 1979) Difference organizational climate and organizational culture Organization culture The tradition of an organization can be describes as its culture, Hatch (1993) describes organizational culture as shared basic assumption in the organization that have been developed over a long time which are used in guiding the internal relationship of employees in an organization. Hatch (1993) points out three main aspects of organization culture which are, Artifacts, visible organizational structures and methods Espoused values; strategic goals and objective of the organization Underlying assumptions; assumed beliefs and perceptions Culture of an organization has a deeper influence with the employees and affects how they feel and perceive the organization in which they are working in. organizational culture is dynamic and keeps on evolving with time. Organizational structure and mission or vision and values of an organization highly influence the culture of an organization. (Hatch, 1993) Organizational climate Organizational climate is the feelings and perceptions employees have concerning the work atmosphere of their organization. There are different facets that may determine the feeling of the employees. (Verkasalo, 1996) Some of the facets are; the ethics of the organization, how the organization relates with its employees, or how the management performance its work or even the corporate responsibilities of the organization, if the organization has a good social responsibility policy, or not. Organization climate of an organization affects the performance of an organization and to make the organization achieve its objective or fail to achieve the. Studies show that organization structure and culture of an organization goes a long way in defining the organization climate in an organization. (Verkasalo, 1996) In relation to the hospital In view of above discussion it is apparent that organizational climate is significant in ensuring that an organization does achieve its stated objective and missions. The working environment of St. Mary’s has been geared towards a better culture and climate and the hospital has provided a good organizational culture and climate in line with its values of respect and excellent service to its employees. (Murray & DiCroce, 2003) Compared to Health Care Environmental Checklist St Mary’s hospital endeavours to be work in line with professionalism to and follow any required healthcare standards and even surpass them. Thus, the hospital has kept all the requirements on the Health Care Environmental Check list. For example the hospital has a comprehensive training program for all its employees; it has an expansive community prevention program and has put out mechanisms to ensure that all patients are discharged on time without any undue delays. (St Mary’s, 2007) Encouraging Communication channels High-quality organization working atmosphere calls for a high level of efficiency in the communication. When communication is rightly used in an organization it motivates the employees and enhances the overall performance of the organization. Smircich (1983) clearly states that good communication is vital for any organization. He adds that for the communication to be effective, proper management structure as to be in place. Good communication highly motivates employees and ensures that the organization objectives and goals are communicated to the employees. On the other hand poor organizational structure in an organization leads to poor and ineffective communication which eventually may lead to poor performance at the work place. In order to ensure that communications channels remain effective and, the communication channels should be monitored and improved where necessary. It is also important that good communication skills are learnt by all employees. St Mary’s hospital has created a well structured management system that enhances communication at all levels. In accordance to the hospital value of respect each employee whether in management respects each other and spares time for communicate to each other. (Smircich, 1983) To Smircich (1983) communication in an organization is defined by the organization culture and climate within an organization. Culture of an organization greatly impacts communication in the particularly organization. Effectual communication in an organization requires constant open discussions. It is important hat the management of organization develops a culture of having such discussion as the give opportunity to all employees in the organization to air their views. However, with big organizations with braches or divisions in other regions can hold branch meeting and organize for annual general meetings in which all employees can meet and discuss. St Mary’s hospital in line to improving its communication channels has established regular meetings which different departments hold to discuss issues that pertain to those departments. The management structure also is structured in a way the response from the above reaches the bottom without delay. In similar way the comments and suggestions from the bottom are relayed to the top for immediate action. As noted in the values of the hospital it values contributions from all employees. (Smircich, 1983) Encouraging Nursing leadership; Good organization structure should provide for career advancement and development. Today, a lot of employees in an organization want to advance there careers and look for organizations which can offer them such opportunities. . The management structure should allow promotions based on merits and should give the organizations employees a first priority. As Burrell & Morgan (1979) notes, this will highly motivate the employees to develop their skills especially in leadership. St Mary’s hospital understands that career fulfilment goes together with career development. To this end, the hospital thus provides its employees with various opportunities for advancing their education through in-house training and by promotions. For, instance the hospital provides training program to assist other hospital staff members to become registered nurses. The hospital also has a program for new recruits that run for 4-6 weeks in which it offers support on “hands-on patient care” that offers new recruits by assessment practice in the hospital’s skills lab and assistance from the hospital’s experienced nurses. Professional teams created in an organization are important in developing the leadership skills for the team especially of the team leaders. As Burrell & Morgan (1979) notes a leader of a team is expected to stand out from the rest of the team members and should assist his/her team to overcome issues and to advocate for a team members where injustice seems to be done. Effective management structure and strong culture of an organization affects teams’ performance. St Mary’s hospital has several health care teams that are used in the hospital to achieve various tasks. These teams go along way in offering the nursing staff to explore their leadership skills, as each nurse is given an opportunity to take initiative. St Mary’s devoted teams enjoy excellent camaraderie as the hospital works as a team to try and make medical care within the city less expensive and accessible, at the same time continues to improve the quality of the healthcare services and gives the nursing staff opportunity to apply their leadership skills. Organization needs to have a program of developing employees through training programs both internal and external so foster their skills. To this end, hospital sponsor its nursing staff for advancement training and gives them time to attend seminars and workshop which are important in developing their management skills. (Burrell & Morgan, 1979) Encouraging Nursing care delivery system; St Mary’s hospital has continued to offer quality and high class healthcare services because of its well organized structure, strong culture and good climate that the hospital has maintained over the years. The hospital has put a strong emphasis on quality medical care to its patients. To achieve and maintain this quality nursing care the hospital has undertaken some of the outlined ways. (St Mary’s, 2007) Proper recruitment process Employees’ recruitment is a significant process in which an organization ensures that it obtains the right employees for specific job. Employee recruitment consists of selection, sourcing and staffing. All these are related activities that are undertaken by the organization. Management and recruitment activities assist in making sure the organization gets employees with right skills are recruited. Sackmann (1991) to this, St Mary’s hospital has ensured that it follows professionalism in recruitment processes that it gets only the best. This has enhanced the nursing care services provided by the hospital as it has the best staff. (Sackmann, 1991) Good patient care Sackmann (1991) notes that customers are the most important people in an organization and should be treated well. Organizations that value their customers and treats their customers with respect and also goes a long way satisfy their demands and need succeeds in their operations as they attract more customer and retain the old ones. Since the hospital reputation is based on personalized attention and care, the hospital depends on each staff member of the hospital to maintain the tradition of good service. The hospital management gives its employees’ opportunity to voice their contributions and suggestions which are respected and incorporated in decisions that are undertaken in order to improve the health care delivery system of the hospital. Training of employee Training is very important as it improves the skills and knowledge of a person. Sackmann (1991) argues that no matter how much an employee is qualified, he/her can not perfect in every thing and he/she will need more training to perfect his/her skill. A well trained employee improves his performance and the performance of the organization as a whole. In recognizing this aspect, St Mary’s hospital offers monthly training courses for new RN graduates and other international nurses. The training program includes skills lab, hospital wide orientation, clinical skills training and computer training among others. This training goes a long way in improving the overall service that the hospital offers especially the nursing care. (Sackmann, 1991) Areas of improving Improving communication Communication in any organization is the vital aspect of that organization and will always need to be improved and monitored in all aspects so that it is more effective and fast. Delaying any responses means delaying work that should have been performed. The management structure has to the able to provide from for continuous improvements. In St Mary’s hospital the culture and climate of communication is good. However, no trainings programs in communications skills are carried on regular basis; a lot of emphasis is just put on healthcare and nursing training while forgetting that communication is an area that needs to be improved for effective services delivery. It should be noted that communication is an art and has to be learnt well. (Verkasalo, 1996) Opportunities for improvement Organization structure and culture of any organization is the most significant aspect of making sure that an organization achieves its goals and objects. St Mary’s hospital need to improve on its divisional management structure as in many cases some divisions walk away from the main organization goals and objectives. It has also been noted that big departments of the hospital at times creates a different culture depending on the leadership of that particular department. Those close working relations among the different managers and directs of the various department need to developed to improve the strong that the hospital is known for. This will calls for reviewing and ensuring that every department of the hospital has objectives and goals that reflect the stated missions of the hospital. The top level management also has to work together and exchange ideas and also encourage their juniors to freely mix and interact to maintain or improve the current organizational climate that is prevailing. (Hatch, 1993) Conclusion Organization structure is the framework on leadership in an organization and is highly dependent on the size and the service being offered by the organization. The structure of the organization and its culture greatly determines how work is done in that particular organization and will determine the success of the organization. Culture of an organization, is how work performed and how employees relate to each other in the organization. Culture of an organization in turn determines the climate in that organization. Communication, leadership and service delivery are among the issues that are affected either positively or negatively by structure, culture and climate of an organization. St Mary’s hospital has an impressive organization structure and culture that has made the hospital to reach where it is. However, it needs to improve on its divisional management structure and communication process to maintain and even improve on its current service delivery. Reference: Burrell, G. & Morgan, G. (1979): Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis; London: Heinemann Hatch, M.J. (1993): The Dynamics of Organizational Culture. Academy of Management Review, Vol. 18, No. 4 Murray, ME & DiCroce, H.R (2003): Leadership and management in nursing, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall, New Jersey. Sackmann, S.A. (1991): Uncovering Culture in Organizations. Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, Vol. 27, No. 3, Smircich, L. (1983): Concepts of Culture and Organizational analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly St Mary’s Medical Centre (2007): About the hospital: Retrieved from: www.st-marys.org accessed on 22/10/ 07 Verkasalo, M. (1996): Values: Desired or Desirable. Helsinki: Hakapaino. Appendix The Health Care Environmental Checklist Directions: Check "yes" or "no" to the list of attributes to determine to what extent your organization/complex is consistent with the stated priorities for today's health care. Attribute Yes No • Wellness and prevention programs are offered to the public.   • Patients are discharged in a timely manner.   • Case management is the system of nursing care delivered   For inpatient and outpatient care.   • Home care services are provided.   • Ambulatory or outpatient surgery services are offered.   • Opportunities exist for Advanced Practice Nurses.   • Standardization of medical and nursing care plans are in effect   Using critical paths and evidence-based care. • Skilled nursing units are available.   Read More