Introduction
Healthcare management is often regarded as the cornerstone of effective medical practice, as it involves different aspects of treating patients, including medical, social, psychological, and legislative factors. In general, the actual importance of management for clinicians is explained by the opportunity to apply their medical knowledge and skills more effectively, as this involves the required set of standards and regulations for treating patients, and assigning therapies.
This paper aims to analyze the management principles applied by the Dr. Erfan and Badego General Hospital team. This involves effective management of the health care practices, as well as the proper regulation of the team performance by the implementation of perfectly adjusted managerial policies.
Analysis and Purpose of the Policy
The purpose of the policy applied is the effective and reasonable for managing the entire hospital. First, it should be stated that sufficient attention is paid to HR management, as the hospital manpower headcount involves up to 2000 employees who fill over 230 various positions. This helps apply, change, and modify various policies for pandemic management, and makes the entire health care management more flexible and effective. Therefore, the flexible HR management principles help the hospital administration perform all the necessary changes in the case of pandemics, or urgencies. (Reddick, 2007)
The principle of this strategy is based on the principle of interchangeability within the working and managerial structure. Therefore, there is no strict division of the personnel into quick reaction personnel, and therapists help perform effective human resource allocation policy for managing pandemics. Therefore, as it is stated in HR principles of the hospital, the key responsibilities of the HRM department involve performing effective management policy for providing compensations, recruitment policies, and adjusting and regulating employee relations.
Since the department is aimed at employing highly qualified and experienced personnel, the hospital administration guarantees that the team will be able to perform any managerial tasks whether these are issued within normal or extreme situations. Therefore, the great attention is paid to effective resource allocation principles for avoiding the possible lack, or overflow of the qualified personnel. (Rigolosi, 2005)
Who Should Use It
This strategy may be used by most health care organizations that may be involved into the public health care, liquidation of a catastrophe consequences, rescue operations and so on. On the one hand, the regarded HR principles are effective for avoiding standard patterns of management in general, and help to perform proactive instead of reactive management strategies (Covey, 1990), however, it can not be used for a properly arranged medical assistance scheme. Therefore, oncology, mammology, and psychotherapy personnel can not be involved into emergency rescue operations, while surgeons, physicians, traumatologists, and even ophthalmologists and otolaryngologists may be required for emergencies. Pandemic management is also more effective if the HR strategy is flexible.
Additionally, such a scheme requires the extended code of ethics for the medical and nursing personnel, and in accordance with the case study by House (2008), the following statement should be emphasized that the code of ethics for physicians and nurses suggested that they should be ready to put themselves in danger in the case of a pandemic, or any other disaster that would require the efforts of the medical personnel to cope with it. In the light of this statement, it should be emphasized that hospitals with low code of ethics will not be able to implement this policy effectively.
Areas
In accordance with the research by Geisler, Krabbendam et al. (2003), the areas of pandemic and emergency management involve all the sphere of health care management that may be required for managing pandemics or emergencies. Therefore, the areas that are applicable for the regarded healthcare management policy involve qualifications that help manage pandemics. These are immunologists, diagnosticians, chemists, as well as virus and bacteria specialists.
As for the HR areas that are involved, it should be emphasized that these experts should have all the necessary equipment and materials, as well as motivation level for being able to work effectively. Therefore, HR management areas include cooperation with the supply chain management and analytical departments, as well as motivation of the personnel.
Details of the Policy
Since the actual importance of the HRM in the pandemic management is explained by the proper motivation and compensation for the workers, the details of this policy will involve the following aspects:
- Maintaining the necessary motivation level
- Regular training, conferences, seminars, and qualification improvement activities for the employees
- Interaction of the HRM department with training, supply, analytical and research departments
- Proper assessment of the team performance effectiveness for checking the possible mistakes
- Risk management and mitigation
Therefore, in accordance with the statement by Sullivan and Decker (2005), HRM policy for health care should be closely linked with the specification of the area. Since Dr. Erfan and Badego General Hospital offers a wide range of medical services and assistance, the HRM department should define clearly, which departments will be able to participate in pandemic or emergency management actions, and which will not. This will be the basis of the effective HRM regulations, and proper resource allocation principles.
Problem Solving
This mainly involves proper risk management. Proper identification of the possible risks and problems is regarded as one of the most effective tools for solving problems (Vartiainen, 2008). Therefore, the hospital will have to analyze the situation, define the possible risks, and develop an effective mitigation strategies. Therefore, in the case of a pandemic, natural disaster, or any other emergency event, the problem solving steps should be based on, but not limited to the steps given below:
- Assessment of the situation with evaluating possible damages and loss
- Defining what specialists or departments will be helpful in this particular type of disaster
- Assessment of the opportunity to redeploy all the necessary experts and personnel to the place of emergency
- Providing all the necessary materials to the teams thrown for managing the emergency (O’Neil and Quinn, 2002)
In the case of problems or barriers in this problem solving algorithm, the nature of the problem should be defined first. As it is stated by Donahue, Selden, et.al. (2000), this origin need to be thought over in the risk management guidelines, otherwise, responsibility and authority sphere should be narrowed for accelerating the decision making process.
Policy Evaluation
The policy may be evaluated only from the perspectives of its efficiency and flexibility. The features described are aimed at pointing out the effectiveness of the policy, as the actual importance of flexibility, efficiency, and stability of the policy is explained by the opportunity to solve the problems quickly, and with the most effective resource allocation. Therefore, pandemics are resolved by assigning the corresponding experts, emergencies require the most experienced personnel, while disasters that are featured with the increased risk for life require high motivation level. (Mazo and Rappaport, 2004)
Health care principles and policies applied by the administration of Dr. Erfan and Badego General Hospital are closely linked with the necessity to help people in the case of disasters, pandemics, or catastrophes. Therefore, the main aim is to ensure that the health care is consistent, all round, and undertaken. (Garling, 2008) Additionally, the medical services should be spread to the widest area possible. (Kirkman-Liff, 2003).
Since the policy involves training of the personnel, the results of these training activities will be another assessment factor for the evaluation of the policy. This may be performed by arranging special complex tests that will involve checking of the qualification level, as well as experience, and effectiveness of the actions performed. (Kleinke, 2001)
Evidence Base for the Policy
The policy is mainly supported by the research of various scientists in the sphere of health care, HR management, and resource allocation principles (Ewert, 2002; Carlopio and Armstrong, 2005; Budhwar and Debrah, 2001; Kumar and Subramanian, 2004). Therefore, it is stated that the evidence for the policy is closely linked with the values of effective management, and assistance of the government in providing the hospital with the necessary experts, materials, and technical basis. The general scheme of evidence basis is as follows:
Conclusion
Health care policy applied by the administration of Dr. Erfan and Badego General Hospital is based on the flexible and potential pandemic management that is closely linked with the proper resource allocation management, as well as the traditional involvement of the personnel into pandemic, disaster, and emergency management actions.
References
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