The Caring Angel Hospital’s Quality of Care

A lot has been done to improve the quality of care provided by the Caring Angel Hospital. The two months of renovations turned into the hospital’s ability to acquire more patients and the expansion of the hospital market. Nonetheless, it should be admitted that the Caring Angel Hospital lacks narrow-profile specialists, comfortable seats in the waiting area, and a favorable atmosphere in the team. Besides, the hospital does not have a properly working appointment system that would guarantee that patients would not show up on the wrong dates. The current paper contains recommendations on how to rectify the situation described above.

One of the most severe issues of the Caring Angel Hospital is a low quality of care that makes patients search for specialists in other hospitals. The quality suffers because the practitioners do not cooperate, hide their actions from the colleagues, and blame each other for the failures in patients treatment. Poor communication between specialists inevitably leads to poor treatment outcomes (Foronda, MacWilliams, & McArthur, 2016).

Besides, in some cases, a dialogue between specialists in different fields is vital for a patient’s well-being. Hence, the first recommendation is to train nurses and doctors to interact while creating a patient treatment plan. It is also crucial to conduct training courses dedicated to conflict resolution and communication with patients. The training on how to communicate with patients would make practitioners and nurses more amiable and improve their morale.

The administration should also regularly conduct team-building events until the environment within the team improves. This, in turn, would create a healthy team environment. Overall, the measures outlined above would increase the quality of care provided by the Caring Angel Hospital.

Another problem to be addressed is the mess with appointments. Apparently, the present system of making an appointment is ineffective. To fix this problem and add value to the hospital, it is recommended to automatize this system. More precisely, a mobile app could be developed in which patients could see the schedule of a specialist and choose a suitable date for a visit. However, it might be argued that the development of an app is too expensive for the hospital that faces financial difficulties.

Still, it should be admitted that the cost of the development of an app is much lower than the price of new medical equipment. More precisely, the hospital requires no more than $5,000 to make an app that would increase its performance. Even though banks refuse to lend the hospital a large sum of money, it is expected that a $5,000 loan will be approved.

The existing organizational chart of the Caring Angel Hospital is inefficient because employees could not convey their opinion to the superiors. The empirical study conducted by Neubert, Hunter, and Tolentino (2016) reveals that an organizational structure affects the quality of nurses and physicians performance as well as the satisfaction of the patients with the received services. In this context, the necessity to establish an open-door policy becomes evident.

An open-door approach means that medics are always welcomed to discuss their opinion, fears, and suggestions regarding their performance and hospital with the managerial personnel. Moreover, vertical communication should be established in the hospital. This type of communication implies that the staff members can discuss issues with the leadership that, in turn, faces impediments in contacting the stakeholders, including employees, in the first place.

The Caring Angel Hospital could not succeed without the creation of its competitive advantage. The modern healthcare environment of intense competition makes it challenging for any hospital to achieve a competitive advantage (Agwunobi & Osborne, 2016). Without a strong distinctive feature that would attract more patients, a hospital is doomed to bankruptcy (Agwunobi & Osborne, 2016). Therefore, it is essential to analyze the competitors and figure out their strong and weak sides.

After that, the Caring Angel Hospital could turn the weak sides of other hospitals into the own competitive advantages. Simultaneously, the administration should not forget to dedicate resources to physicians’ regular advanced training and promotion of interprofessional collaboration. This would reduce cases when patients have to visit other hospitals in search of better treatment.

Having the question of competitive advantage discussed, it is necessary to consider how to acquire a larger market share under the prevailing financial circumstances. One of the most effective ways is to merge with other hospitals that perform better. The merger means the economy of scale, efficient care delivery, access to the other clinics’ capital and resources, and, most importantly, an increased market share (Cerullo et al., 2019). Cerullo et al. (2019) show that a merger is beneficial for patients because it reduces costs.

It seems rational to unite with the clinics to which patients come after receiving unsatisfactory treatment in the Caring Angel Hospital. This way, the merger would become a useful tool not only to acquire a larger market share but also to prevent patients from hopping from one hospital to another.

The Caring Angel Hospital could suggest some value-added services that would strengthen its value position. The first service is a doctor’s visit to the patient’s home for older people or those who cannot come to the hospital due to the illness but could be treated without hospitalization. Nurses could also arrive in patients homes to take the tests.

Even though this service is not widespread, it would be prevalent among the target audience. The first advantage of a physician’s visit is that elderly people would not switch to the nearest hospital. In turn, this will have a positive impact on patients satisfaction and the increase in customers. Secondly, the provision of such services could become a competitive advantage of the Caring Angel Hospital because it is not typical for doctors and nurses to visit patients at the latter’s home.

Another value-added service to be suggested is the digitalization of the hospital so that the practitioners and nurses could keep medical records electronically. In the paper, it has already been mentioned that a mobile app should be developed to fix the problem of missing appointments. The implementation of electronic medical records would become an excellent complement to the app.

Electronic records’ primary benefit is that both a patient and a doctor could easily access them whenever and wherever they want. Besides, other specialists will have access to these records and, therefore, consider the treatment and medicines prescribed by another practitioner. Finally, the tendency towards digitalization is undeniable and irreversible, and the Caring Angel Hospital should follow the global trends.

To conclude, the current paper contains recommendations that would improve the quality of treatment, the atmosphere in the team, and the hospital’s overall performance. It is essential not to postpone implementing these suggestions because the hospital works inefficiently and is at the verge of bankruptcy. In general, the administration should build a dialogue with staff members and monitor the market conditions and the global tendencies to derive benefits from the changing environment.

References

Agwunobi, A., & Osborne, P. (2016). Dynamic capabilities and healthcare: a framework for enhancing the competitive advantage of hospitals. California Management Review, 58(4), 141-161.

Cerullo, M., Sheckter, C. C., Canner, J. K., Rogers, S. O., & Offodile, A. C. (2019). Is Bigger Better?: The Effect of Hospital Consolidation on Index Hospitalization Costs and Outcomes Among Privately Insured Recipients of Immediate Breast Reconstruction. Annals of surgery, 270(4), 681-691.

Foronda, C., MacWilliams, B., & McArthur, E. (2016). Interprofessional communication in healthcare: An integrative review. Nurse education in practice, 19, 36-40.

Neubert, M. J., Hunter, E. M., & Tolentino, R. C. (2016). A servant leader and their stakeholders: When does organizational structure enhance a leader’s influence? The Leadership Quarterly, 27(6), 896-910.

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