Health Care Management

    As a new director of a 450-bed general non-for-profit community hospital located in a very dense area, you know the importance of good management to accomplish your mission. The previous director of the hospital resigned recently after the occurrence of eight neonatal deaths in the neonatal ward. Based on initial analysis of the hospital, you found that the hospital suffers from many problems, mainly shortage of staff, inappropriate skill-mix, high costs of maintenance of medical equipments, lack of proper job descriptions, and low quality of provided services. You found that the current performance appraisal of employees uses graphic rating scales system, and it is not popular among hospital employees. The laboratory, radiology, and pharmacy departments complained to you that they are not receiving the required amounts of medicines, lab reagents, and radiology films they need from the medical stores. You found also that the hospital suffers from a financial crisis, and expenses for the last year far exceeded the revenues. After reviewing, the latest surveys, you found that only 45% of patients were generally satisfied with the services provided, and 53% of employees were generally satisfied with the management of the hospital. Based on your initial analysis of the hospital, please answer the following questions: 1. Discuss briefly three possible solutions based on good managerial practices to overcome shortage of staff taking into account the financial constraints 2. Mention which method(s) you will use for selection of new employees to ensure an effective selection process 3. Given the current situation of the hospital, discuss briefly three possible solutions to address inappropriate skill-mix issue 4. Discuss in details the process that you will follow to develop complete job descriptions. What are the main components of the job description 5. Discuss three shortcomings of the current performance appraisal system, and discuss two possible solutions to improve the employee performance appraisal system 6. To improve operations, will you consider alternative work arrangements? If yes, what are they? If not, why? 7. What is the best leadership style you will follow at this critical stage and why     8. What steps will you take to deal with the death of neonates 9. Discuss three possible steps that will take to improve satisfaction of patients 10. Discuss three possible steps that will take to improve satisfaction of employees 11. Mention three control procedures you will use to ensure the availability of the required inventory 12. Discuss briefly three recommendations that you will recommend to the governing board of the hospital in the next meeting