Consulting for the Caring Angel Hospital

In my capacity as the senior consultant, I have been requested to examine the operations at Caring Angel Hospital to help in different areas such as improving the quality of care at the hospital, improving the employee’s morale and adding value to the organization among other things. I made a lot of progress in the first two months and noticed many areas that still need improvement. I’ve also acknowledged the areas that are striving in the hospital. I would, therefore, use the information to help the hospital achieve its goals.

Improve the Quality of Care

The hospital can adopt different steps to achieve its main goal of improving the quality of care that it provides. One of my observations was that the staff within the hospital does not engage their patients in the treatment process blame each other and works alone. All these negative aspects lower the quality of care in the hospital. Care Angel hospital should, therefore, train and direct its professional staff to place much focus on the patient and to present themselves to the patient with a more pleasant demeanor. One such demeanor is to smile more during their conversation with the patients, which will allow the patients to feel more confident and have increased assurance in the abilities of the medical staff. Another step that Care Angel hospital can use to improve the quality of care is to install comfortable modern couches in the waiting area since the seats currently available are not comfortable. The aspect of comfort gives the patients a sense of self-assurance on the quality of medical care that they expect to receive from the hospital.

Add Value to the Organization

There is an enormous need for value addition in Caring Angel hospital. The hospital is currently struggling in many areas that pertain to the addition of value to the organization. From my observation in the first two months, the patients are still hopping from one hospital to another in search of specialized care, such as cardiovascular care. There for to add value the hospital should upgrade its cardiovascular machines to enable them to work efficiently and consistently without failure, purchase modern equipment for the treatments and hire more physicians who are specialized in providing cardiovascular and other special treatments that force the patients to get care outside the Care Angel hospital. At the same time, it was observed that the patients tend to show regularly up for their doctors appointments on the wrong days. The hospital can therefore efficiently and quickly add value to their patient services by installing a mechanism whereby the patients are assigned to individual staff who calls the patient at least a day before their set appointment dates. The aspect will further enhance the staff-patient interaction and give the patient a sense of belonging towards the hospital. Also, the patient’s turnout for appointments on the wrong days will decline.

Improve Employee Moral

To effectively achieve its goal, Care Angel hospital must ensure that the morale of its employees is uplifted to enable them to work efficiently. An employee whose morale is low is likely to be less productive and not focus much on its given tasks. From the observation the employee’s morale in the hospital seems to be low. The hospital staff and employees have a feeling that the management and their superiors are not giving them attention. At the same time, I have noticed that there are a lot of blame games going on during treatment processes between the different members of the staff. The first step in improving the morale of the employees is to determine the cause of the morale problem in the hospital from employees. According to Crawford, Rich, Buckman, and Bergeron, most employees feel comfortable working in an environment that is both professional and dynamic, an aspect that should be initiated by Care Angel Hospital. The hospital needs to install high standards of professionalism and encourage the aspect of teamwork to enhance productivity. Furthermore, the hospital management and superiors should adopt an effective communication strategy that will instill more confidence in the employees. The employees feel they do not have the ability to voice their opinion on hospital matters, and the lack of communication was the main cause of their unsmiling nature. 

Design an Efficient Organizational Chart

The hospital can adopt certain aspect to develop an effective organizational chart. An organizational chart indicates the flow of information in the organization. The main focus of any management in an organization should always be to ensure that the aspect of communication is made in such a way that it fits the profile of the organizational culture. Therefore, the hospital should adopt the open-door-policy and change the hospital’s chain of command in regards to its supervisory roles. I would further suggest to the hospital to ensure there is effective communication between those n the supervisory position as well as those they supervise. Furthermore, there should be a free-range communication among the nurses and the employees regarding relaying any given information about patient care. An organization should, therefore, ensure there is a free conversation between the stakeholders that are involved in providing patient care.

Create a Strong Team Environment

The aspect of teamwork is the most important factor in heath care provision that Care Angel hospital should adopt to create an environment of a strong team. The observation made in the hospital indicates that the workers tend to work alone and hides what they do from their colleagues, which clearly indicate the lack of teamwork in the hospital. According to Burns, Bradley and Weiner, Teamwork provides both opportunity and challenges as it relates closely to diversity. The important factors that the hospital should put into consideration when establishing the aspect of teamwork in the hospital include communication, supervision, and team structure. Furthermore, the strength and weakness of the individual members should also be put into consideration. Finally, the hospital should also consider the amount of time that the team will be together within the environment as it will determine how the given team will interact with time.

Create the Hospital’s Competitive Edge

The most important step that Care Angel Hospital can employ to create a competitive advantage is to evaluate the programs that are currently offered by the hospital. The programs to be evaluated should be of comparative value and should enhance the needs of those who consume the programs. One such program is to ensure there is the provision of high-quality care in the hospital. High-quality care will give the hospital a competitive edge over other hospitals as more patients will prefer to come for treatment in the hospital. Another aspect by which the hospital can create a competitive advantage is to establish a strong physician alignment that will lead to a decline in patients hopping to other hospitals to look for special treatments.

Approach for Acquiring Larger Market Share

The one approach that Care Angel hospital could use to acquire a larger market share given the prevailing financial circumstances is to merge with other hospitals. The merger will enable Care Angel Hospital to remain in business and allow the clients to get what they want such as the specialized care that they are constantly moving to look for in the other hospital. The merger will further increase the revenue and will likely to eradicate the constant losses that the hospital experience every year. Finally, a part of providing a bigger market share, the merger will enable the huge number of health care recipient to gain the aspect of consumerism.

Value-Added Services

The aspect of value must be added to any particular service that exists in an organization if such an organization is to achieve the best care. Therefore the first possible way to add value to the hospital is to establish a mechanism that allows for remote medical consultation in specialized fields. For example, the patients are constantly looking for specialized care and in a case where Care Angel Hospital cannot offer the care needed, and then there is the likelihood of the hospital losing the patients to other hospitals. Therefore, the hospital can partner with another hospital that offer specialize care to accommodate all the patients.

Another aspect of adding value is to implement the electronic health records. One of the observations made was that most patients turn out for appointments on the wrong days. Therefore implementing the electronic health records will have the advantage of ensuring that there is a decline in missing appointments. Another advantage is that the electronic health records will ensure those who comes for treatment at the Care Angel Hospital will have the option of receiving their medical appointments through online means such as the internet so as to avoid coming for appointments on the wrong days.

Conclusion

I have observed that Care Angel Hospital poses a lot of positive qualities that it should continue to pursue and utilize for the patients benefits. I have further outlined the hospital’s areas of opportunities that need improvement and the positive attributes of the hospital. I believe that the recommendations that I have outlined in the report will enable the hospital to become a strong health care and business organization.