Essay Example. Building a Successful Health Organization Culture

Among the contribution of policymakers, managers, and physicians in a healthcare organization, organizational culture is also a much relevant aspect of building a successful healthcare organization. Importantly, a healthcare facility with a positive organizational culture enables the delivery of proper care to patients and, therefore, positive outcomes including reduced mortality, improved quality of life as well as decreased level of pain. Many healthcare organizations are still struggling to implement sustainable and transformational changes to improve their culture and healthcare delivery in general. For example, most of these organizations face challenges like financial incentives, which emphasize the number of services over the quality, and internal problems that further prevent improvement. This report suggests improvement strategies that can build a successful healthcare organizational culture for the selected organization towards driving results for access, quality, and cost-effectiveness through innovative, responsive, and sustainable recommendations.

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Ensuring an Effective Internal Communication

Effective communication within a healthcare organization is critically essential not only towards building a quality organization culture but also towards improving patients’ lives. Specifically, to promote the hospital's healthcare delivery, workers within the organization should be able to adapt to clear and proper communication. Proper communication, both internally and externally, as well as with each other and to the patients, will enable the best coordination of service delivery (Verbakel et al., 2016). Furthermore, the leadership should also provide the organization with a common language, a set of specific goals for the healthcare facility, as well as relevant tools to provide the driving change. To do this, the management of the hospital should define and communicate all the roles and responsibilities of the organization's workers. Doing this will empower the organization's teams with a variety of tools to make valid decisions, effective changes, as well as process improvement. Besides, Fortenberry & McGoldrick (2016) provides that the leaders in the organization should not only point out the map entailing the what, how and when to communicate but also ensure consistency in delivering their message towards effective change. By enhancing communication in the organization, access to care will be improved for the patients.

Developing a Clear Strategy

One of the most significant aspects of a competent healthcare organization is the development of a clear strategy that every healthcare official in the facility can understand. According to Guimaraes et al. (2020), as an essential process, changing culture needs thoughtful planning from the most influential characters in the healthcare organization. In this aspect, all individuals in the healthcare facility should recognize their responsibilities as well as their roles in providing healthcare to the public. For instance, even though following a timeline and specific measures, the hospital among all the workers should recognize that they are supposed to do more even after the implementation process (Verbakel et al., 2016). An effective organizational culture will, therefore, require that all the departments in the organization are well committed towards particular strategies that will increase the organization's performance in providing healthcare. In addition to the apparent strategy communicated in the organization, there should also be a promotion of transparency, especially in the management of the hospital as well as its future (Guimaraes et al., 2020). This will allow for the engagement of all the staff and, more importantly, a positive workplace culture that will not only ensure quality delivery of healthcare but also ease of access.

Alignment of Incentives within the Organization

Additionally, while the above factors are essential towards promoting a positive organizational culture, it is also necessary for the hospital to strategize how it aligns its goals, resources as well as incentives to improve its organizational structure and reduce the costs for healthcare. As Fortenberry & McGoldrick (2016) provide, aligning of incentives is an organization's operational model and can, therefore, help eliminate variabilities and waste within the organization. This will be important for the selected healthcare organization, as it will help reduce all the aspects that do not contribute to the enhancement of quality and, thus, will ensure that the organization saves significantly. As such, through saving in different sectors, the facility can then improve the care process as well as the patient’s health as well as make the improvement process sustainable (Verbakel et al., 2016). This will, in turn, reduce the cost of care to the patients while at the same time, increasing the quality of care and the organization's culture in general.

Conclusion

Organizational culture is an essential aspect of any company as it ensures proper coordination and improvement of performance in every aspect. As shown in this report, organizational culture in the healthcare industry enables the delivery of accessible quality care at an affordable cost. The report has offered three main recommendations that the selected organization can apply to enhance organizational culture and, in turn, enhance the accessibility of quality healthcare. Among the strategies that the company can implement include ensuring effective internal communication among the healthcare professionals and patients, developing a clear strategy that all departments can adhere to both presently and in the future, as well as aligning the incentives within the organization.

References

Fortenberry, Jr, J. L., & McGoldrick, P. J. (2016). Internal marketing: A pathway for healthcare facilities to improve the patient experience. International Journal of Healthcare Management, 9(1), 28-33.

Guimaraes, T., do Carmo Caccia-Bava, M., & Geist, M. (2020). The Moderating Effect of Organization Culture on Competition Intensity and Hospital Quality. International Journal of Healthcare Information Systems and Informatics (IJHISI), 15(3), 47-64.

Verbakel, N. J., Langelaan, M., Verheij, T. J., Wagner, C., & Zwart, D. L. (2016). Improving patient safety culture in primary care: a systematic review. Journal of patient safety, 12(3), 152-158.