Building Organizational Capacity in Healthcare

This paper analyzes the current organizational structure in healthcare and presents an alternative structure to build capacity and achieve strategic goals.

Running head: HEALTHCARE 1
Building organizational capacity in health care
Student Name
Institution

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Introduction
The changing environment around the healthcare service provisions requires an
organizational structure that is flexible adaptable and offers quality service to patients. Several
organizational structures are rigid and prove to be immutable to changes and this is detrimental
for the contemporary health care environment. In addition, understanding the need for
community and clients is the primary reason why the type of organizational structure and
strategy is important. In this sense, health care facilities such as Whitlam Memorial Hospital
(WMH) are restructuring to meet the current dynamics and increase its capacity to deliver quality
health service. The following paper, therefore, analyses the current organizational structure and
presents an alternative organizational structure that will help in building the capacity to realize
strategic goals and objectives.
The strength of the current organizational structure
The traditional functional organizational structure is characterized by certain strengths.
These include increase expertise, good communication, proper coordination and increase
productivity of medical specialists. Firstly, the functional structure provides a good
communication environment that is vital for achieving WMH’s mission of high quality
healthcare. The organization is based on the function of employees and departments and this
makes communication effective. The structure is always characterized by procedure and
practices that follow a specific chain of command and this is good for effective communication
hence enable the company to achieve its vision (Sullivan & Decker, 2013). Secondly, the
functional organizational structure has good coordination within a single functional unit. The
communication strength of the functional organization structure is important for collaborative

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care which is goal of WMH hospital. Thirdly, the functional organizational structure ensures that
medical specialists are grouped together thereby enhancing expertise. Grouping medical
specialist together is important for organization to achieve its multidisciplinary care goal. Lastly,
the traditional or functional organizational structure makes it easy to increase the productivity of
medical practitioners due to specialization. Increase productivity is important for the plan of the
WMH hospital to increase bed capacity and other specialized care due to changing community
around (Huebsch, 2018).
The weakness of the current organizational structured
Despite the strength of the functional organizational structure, there are numerous
weaknesses of the structure that needs to be changed with current health dynamics. Firstly, long
decision-making time is one of the worse weakness of the functional structure that leads to slow
response during the emergency medical situation. With the current size of the hospital, a
functional organizational structure can work, when the hospital intends to expand from 130 to
250-bed number, the decision will be longer limiting this expansion plan (Umansky, 2016).
Secondly, a longer decision-making process may lead to the poor relay of message or wrong
information passage. Moreover, the bureaucratic nature of the functional organization is
characterized by a certain chain of command that may not be appropriate for WMH vision of
health experience with faster response. Thirdly, a functional organization structure is rigid and
cannot expand with the globalization phenomenon happening currently. The rigid nature of the
traditional organizational structure reduces the possibility to change depending on the
environment which is the vision of the WMH hospital. Lastly, grouping practitioners according
to the area of specialization lead to the limited chance of multidisciplinary care as most medical
practitioners only focus on their area of specialization. One of the goals of the WMH hospital is

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to provide multidisciplinary team work and specialization limit the ability of collaborative work
a individual practitioner concentrate on area of specialization (Davoren, 2019).
Importance of the organization strategy
An organizational strategic plan that includes vision, mission, and objectives give
directions that ensure the success of the organization. The vision of the organization gives the
picture of where the organization wants to be or to achieve over a period of time. The picture is
drawn from the strategic plan to assist in the development of a structure to realize the vision. In
addition, the structure serves to align resources towards the goal and objectives of the hospital.
For instance, the desire to provide patient-centered care enable the hospital to develop a structure
that concentrates on patients. Vision, mission, and goals of the WMH are important for selecting
a good service centered organizational structure that will help in the provision of quality service,
specialized care, collaborative team and adapt to the environment (Marquis & Huston, 2017).
Alternative Organizational structure for WMH
In line with the vision of the hospital that intends to focus on service provision to patients
and the community, the best organizational strategy is service line. The service line
organizational structure aims to align resources to address the need of the changing community
or populations. This is one of the best organizational structures that has been cited as good for
the current healthcare setting. Patient-centered care theory focuses on the patient as opposed to
systems or functions and this is important for the hospital that is currently working on ways to
improve patient service delivery. One of the importances of the service line structure is the
provision of specialized care such as cancer, paediatric, cardiovascular, renal, trauma, aged care
or community health. This is enhanced by the ability of the organizational structure to advance

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coordinated integrated team or multidisciplinary care. Moreover, many hospitals practicing the
service line name the structure as the center of excellence owing to the quality of health care,
patient satisfaction and lower cost of care (Becker's Hospital Review, 2013).
The strength of the Service Line organizational structure
The service line organizational structure has been cited by many studies suitable for
health care organizations due to some of its strengths. Firstly, the service line organizational
structure focuses on the client and this is good for patient-centered care approach of service
provision. The goal of the WMH is to provide high-quality patient-centered care and this
necessitates the service focus rather than functions. Customer satisfaction is the main goal of the
service line organizational approach as all attention is given to patients hence high quality of
service and clinical outcomes (Calkin, 2012).
Secondly, service line follows the horizontal interaction approach that focuses on
building a relationship between practitioners, patients, community and management. The
horizontal interaction between various people within the organization is known to enhance good
communication and this is in line with the organizational requirement of the WMH. In addition,
the horizontal organizational approach fosters coordination that enhances teamwork,
multidisciplinary care, and collaborations. This implies that the organization structure will help
in the development of the relationship between various stakeholders within the patient path for
quality healthcare service (Jones, 2010).
Thirdly, service line approach blend professionalism and skills and this particularly
important for management of organization where business issues are also incorporated such as
budgeting. Furthermore, the blending of the service approach requires a clear understanding of

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metrics that are important for planning care services for patients. For instance, understanding the
need of the community and using the need for developing care that matches the need. Current
society and its environment are changing and healthcare services are needed that can adapt to the
changing situation in the community. The service approach, therefore, analyses the population
needs of the community and develop healthcare service that meets the need of the community
(Daft, 2010).
Fourthly, the service line organizational approach involves partnership within the
organization and outside the healthcare. The service line is a flexible organizational model that
can foster partnership or collaboration with other practitioners, home care, post-acute care, and
other health care facilities outside the hospital. This partnership aims to manage patient care in
the hospital and within the community. Moreover, being the goal of the hospital to provide
community care and aged care services, service line will serve to make the hospital attain its
goals. For example, for quality healthcare service, WMH will have to improve the discharge
process in collaboration with post-discharge service providers to ensure continuous health
services (Romano, 2013).
Lastly, service line organizational structure allows quick decision-making process that is
essential in case of emergency health care services. Service line leaders are normally aligned to
the strategic direction of the hospital since the structure allows people to make quick decisions.
As the structure removers rigid decision-making process brought about by the functional
organizational structures, the horizontal communication allows quick interaction between
medical practitioners and the management or patients. This characteristic of the service approach
ensures there is a high level of accountability between health practitioners and management for
effective service delivery. The ability of the health care management to understand the

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population metrics make it easy to respond quickly to the situation at hand hence the high level
of transparency (Ovretveit & Gustafson, 2014).
Limitations of the service line organizational structure
The service line organizational structure has some of its weakness that is important for
understanding the structure. Firstly, there is a need for a high level of skill and experience for
effective implementation of the service lines approach in WMH. Service line organization
require the ability of management to properly interpret and understand the community metrics
for designing services. In addition, the service line approach requires skills that can blend both
management and professionalism. For health practitioners to effectively use a service-centered
approach they must be capable of understanding the dynamics of the community as opposed to
the area of expertise alone. Secondly, the development of a formal communication system is
difficult at the service centered health facility as horizontal interaction make it difficult for
formal communication. The horizontal interaction between patients and caregivers requires no
formal communication channel and this may be difficult for the management of the organization
(Ovretveit & Gustafson, 2012).
Conclusion and recommendations
in conclusion, the service centered medical approach services to increase patient clinical
outcome and satisfaction. Proper application of services centered approach as the organizational
structure will help in the provision of specialized care such as cancer, trauma, cardiovascular,
aged care and other community-centered cares. The service line medical approach has the
possibility of increasing collaboration, multidisciplinary care, and interaction between patients or
community and caregivers.

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In light of the analysis of the organizational structure, the service line organizational
structure matches the vision, mission, and goals of the organization and should be adopted.
Continuous training of medical practitioners in the application of service centered care is needed
to ensure that quality of the care that characterize service lines organization is achieved. This will
also help in achieving the quality of service, patient satisfaction and goals of the WMH.

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Reference
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