UNDERSTANDING NURSING MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS:using nurse practitioners to manage patients with chronic conditions, encouraging patients to self-manage chronic conditions, and persuading providers to use electronic communication with patients.
using nurse practitioners to manage patients with chronic conditions, encouraging patients to self-manage chronic conditions, and persuading providers to use electronic communication with patients.
To meet both quality and cost-effective goals, the health care organization may decide to concentrate on specific service lines. Called big-dot focus areas, an organization selects a few major initiatives. They might, for example, put resources into building cardiology, cancer, and neuroscience while maintaining other services as is.
Another strategy is to adopt the quality concepts of lean thinking to redesign (Joosten, Bongers, & Janssen, 2009). Lean thinking focuses on the system rather than on individuals, concentrates on interventions that improve outcomes and disregards those that have little or no effect. A flat, decentralized organizational structure centers decision making closest to the problem. It promotes unit-based decision making and empowers staff to implement process improvements in a timely manner (Kramer, Schmalenberg, & Maguire, 2010). Furthermore, a decentralized structure encourages communication and collaboration and provides a quality im- provement infrastructure.
Redesigning an organization presents numerous challenges. Staff may be concerned that their jobs will change or may disappear. Administrators may complain that loss of authority will result in poor performance. Everyone may worry that cost effective measures may diminish the quality of care. Significant stress is to be expected (Lavoie-Tremblay et al., 2010).
Nurse managers are key players in the redesign efforts. They are expected not only to initi- ate change while reducing costs, maintaining or improving quality of care, coaching and men- toring, and team building, but also to do so in an ever-changing environment full of ambiguities while their own responsibilities are expanded.
Strategic Planning Successful organizations know that they must focus their resources on their unique strengths, and health care is no exception. Organizations that focus on a few strategic initiatives, as dis- cussed previously, do so after an intensive planning process. The competitive health care en- vironment and limited resources require organizations to respond to public demands for safe, accessible quality health care.
This is a time-consuming and demanding process and should not be undertaken hurriedly. Put in use, however, a well-thought-out strategic plan guides the organization toward its goals, helps all the staff stay directed, and prevents the organization from responding to inappropriate requests.
A strategic plan projects the organization’s goals and activities into the future, usually two to five years ahead (Schaffner, 2009). Based on the organization’s philosophy and leaders’ as- sessment of their organization and the environment, strategic planning guides the direction the organization is to take.
The philosophy is a written statement that reflects the organizational values, vision, and mission (Conway-Morana, 2009). Values are the beliefs or attitudes one has about people, ideas, objects, or actions that form a basis for behavior. Organizations use value statements to identify those beliefs or attitudes esteemed by the organizational leaders.
A vision statement describes the goal to which the organization aspires. The vision state- ment is designed to inspire and motivate employees to achieve a desired state of affairs. “Our vision is to be a regional integrated health care delivery system providing premier health care services, professional and community education, and health care research” is an example of a vision statement for a health care system.
The mission of an organization is a broad, general statement of the organization’s reason for existence. Developing the mission is the necessary first step to designing a strategic plan. “Our mission is to improve the health of the people and communities we serve” is an example of a mission statement that guides decision making for the organization. Purchasing a medical equipment company, for example, might not be considered because it fails to meet the mission of improving the community’s health.