Hsm 541: Week 2 – You Decide

HSM 541: Week 2 – You Decide Krystal Richards Professor Alan Flower Middlefield Hospital has been a great healthcare facility to the Middlefield area. Middlefield Hospital consists of a 450-bed tertiary facility in a major urban area in the Northeast. The hospital is an integrated health system that provides the full array of inpatient and outpatient services. The hospital enjoys a reputation of quality care in the area. In recent years, there are areas of concern that need to be addressed.
As I have been assigned the position as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Middlefield Hospital, I will provide strategies and recommendations needed for implementation to turnaround the hospital into a more positive experience not only for the patients but for the employees as well. My approach will implement a triad of care – access, cost, and quality. Middlefield Hospital has been a key staple within our market area of Middlefield. The hospital was able to build another facility on the other side of town.
The new hospital offers much better facilities and the technology is state of the art. While visiting the new hospital, I noticed that the staff appeared much more invested in the quality of patient care and the patients also seem happier. As with new facilities, there comes lots of excitement. The quality of our old facility needs to be upgraded and needs some new type of organization. There needs to be a balance of power so that the new hospital is able to start performing better. This lies within the hospital medical staff, hospital administration, and hospital governance.

With the hospital medical staff we need to take into account their pay for their performance on the work they do. This will in turn encourage them to want to stay with the hospital knowing they will have a steady long-term position. Hospital administration is another important thing to take into account since they work with the clients just as much as the medical staff does. From health insurance, to IT, to security everyone plays a key part in making sure that the patients feel comfortable. To mprove the performance, there need to be upgrades with the systems that the hospital uses to keep track of the patients information. I recommend using Epic as a tool to help keep all of the patient’s information confidential and easy to access with a click of a button. This will allow for every department to have access to a certain patient’s file whether to be from a doctor entering notes about the patient’s visit, to health insurance billing department making sure that copays and such are being paid and their accounts are kept up-to-date.
The hospital governance plays an important role because of the need for funds to help keep the hospital. By providing more outside events to raise money for the hospital will be a great start to being able to fully provide for each patient that comes through Middlefield Hospital doors. Since the employee morale is going down, I think it is important to obtain a good relationship with the local university, Essex University, to provide jobs and internships to the students in the nursing program.
This nursing program will make sure that our managers will be able to teach classes at the university and help train the students to be prepared to work in the hospital. This should address the problem of the employee turnover rate to decrease and bring down the number of nursing vacancies. Nurses are a very important part of the hospital because they are by the patient’s side more than the doctor can be, so they have to show compassion all of the time. This is not a hard characteristic for them to have because they already know how much helpful being a nurse can be.
Also by providing better compensation packages to prospective employees might help as well. Middlefield Hospital needs the best of the best in terms of medical staff. Now that there is another hospital in the area, we need to make sure that both hospitals can be top notch at all times. As with all plans and strategies, this is just the beginning. I believe that Middlefield Hospital will be on top in our marketing areas. By planting these seeds, I am sure that our hospital will continue to grow and become a valuable part of the community.