Management and Strategy

Key Competencies: 

Leadership: leading and managing others, planning and implementing change

Communication and Relationship Management: interpersonal communication,

writing skills, working in teams

Business Skills and Knowledge: human resources management, strategic planning, marketing, organizational behavior and governance, planning and managing projects, quantitative analysis

Professionalism: improving community health

Health Care Knowledge: health care personnel, health care issues and trends

Syllabus:

Healthcare Management and Strategy_syllabus 2014.pdf

Reflection:

Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Leadership is the process of moving talented people towards a meaningful end. Leaders emerge everywhere in an organization and at every level.  Typically we see traits such as strength, competence, credibility, and big thinking from leaders.  In Module 1 we learned about Organizational Theory, both traditional and contemporary, and Organizational Behavior in order to better understand the complex systems within which
we work. 

Organizational Theory included discussions around Weber’s Bureaucratic Theory and Taylor’s Scientific Management, which combined lead to the more humanistic approach; Classical School Theory.  I tend to appreciate organizations that value people first, akin to Classical School Theory.   Dr. Friedman says that the behavior of organizations is nothing more than the behaviors of the people within a given organization.  With this premise in mind we lead by modeling the way and listening to our employees because what is happening with them – matters. Further, engaging with the people we work with enhances communication and good communication leads to better organizational outcomes.  Communication is so much more difficult than it seems on its face.  The five main barriers to communication are:

1.       Negative or ambiguous relationship between sender and receiver

2.       Credibility
3.       Conflicting belief systems
4.       Conflicting interests
5.       Communication style

As we learn about ourselves in the MHA program, we are able to practice becoming better communicators. 

Healthcare Issues and Introduction to Strategy

As healthcare continues to evolve, health services organizations (HSO) must be agile and creative in terms of business models, mergers and customer service.  Further, HSOs must think strategically.  Keeping the mission of the organization in mind, HSOs can look to expand their services or elect to streamline them to what they really do the best.  HSOs can partner with historically unlikely bedfellows such as hospitals partnered with insurance companies.  Some institutions are injecting capital into healthcare related tech ventures.   Healthcare is evolving into a value based service industry and HSOs must position, and reposition as necessary, to achieve the organizational mission.

As part of the strategy portion of this module, we studied Instituto Clinico Humanitas (Humanitas).  Humanitas, a for-profit hospital, utilized the prospective payment or diagnosis-related group (DRG) system in which clinical services were bundled according to the diagnoses of the patient instead of traditional fee for service system. They also had an engaged physician staff trained on the financial aspects of hospital system operations as this directly affected their bonus structure and departmental success.  Humanitas also affiliated with the University of Milan.  Humanitas has been an example in Europe of reducing variation, lowering costs, being innovative and reaching profitability.