Challenges facing TragerField Integrated Health Centre

TragerField Integrated Health Centre, a medical facility located in the rural town of Tragerfield in Western Australia, faces several challenges just like any other institution based in the rural area. Read about the internal and external challenges faced by the facility and recommendations to reduce them.

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Challenges facing TragerField Integrated Health Centre
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Challenges facing TragerField Integrated Health Centre
Institutions located in the rural areas face challenges that their counterparts’ in the
urban areas do not face. Such institutions whether public or private face some challenges just
for the reason that their locations are in the countryside (Nahar, Kannuri, Mikkilineni,
Murthy, & Phillimore, P 2017, p. 15). Health facilities, banks, and any other organization that
serves the public in the rural areas feel the pinch of poor infrastructures like poor road
networks, clean water supply, and sometimes inadequate supply of electricity. Research in
Australia indicated that there is a difference in the allocation of health practitioners like
doctors between the rural areas and the facilities in the city. For instance, there are 142
doctors per a population of 100000 in rural Australia while the ratio in the county's urban
centers is 325 doctors per a population of 100000.
This disparity shows that apart from the doctor population ratio, there are some other
challenges such facilities face (Sheehan & Borowski 2014, p. 108). Tragerfield Integrated
Healthcare Centre, a medical facility located in the rural town of Tragerfield in Western
Australia. The facility has a bed capacity of 210 and also offers a primary care clinic that
cooperates with other allied health facilities. It serves the neighboring farming and mining
population totaling over 60000, a figure more prominent than the planned community in the
town.
Tragerfield integrated Healthcare Centre being a rural institution faces several
challenges just like any other institution based in the rural area. According to the Chief
executive in the facility, some of these challenges include shortage in the medical workforce.
This problem is brought by the fact that many health workers do not like working in the
countryside; a fact that complicates the process of recruitment of the much-needed workforce
(Freshwater & Trapasso 2014, p. 480). The challenging working and living conditions make
retention of workers low. Additionally, acquiring funds to facilitate the rural-based health

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facilities has been difficult as only a few investors agree to invest their capital in such areas.
These factors lead to ineffective and inefficient utilization of the available resources such are
electricity.
Apart from the external challenges, there are some problems caused by the facilities
internally. Some of the workers in such rural institutions develop laziness and come up with
strategies to dodge the rules that govern the industry (CURRIE, DAVIES, & FERLIE 2016,
p. 750). The incompetent workers feel that there are no laws that can catch up with them
immediately. Such mentality lowers the rate of service provision in the organization.
Internal Challenges Facing Tragerfield Center
a) Inadequate use of available resources.
The hospital management has not put in practice the effective mechanisms to make maximum
utilization of the available resources such as the computers that could be used in the
appointment of patients.
b) Mishandling of transfer of patients
The removal of patients from the clinics to the inpatient department in the facility does not
meet the required standards (Nahar, Kannuri, Mikkilineni, Murthy & Phillimore 2017, p. 10).
There is consistent miscommunication between the two related departments, a situation that
leads to congestion in the hospital wards as excess patients are admitted.
c) Incompetence among the health workers
The visit by the Business Improvement Manager revealed how incompetent the staffs in the
facilities were. The fact that the theater rooms were lying empty while there were patients
who needed urgent surgical services proved that the workers were either incompetent or just

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lazy (Sheehan & Borowski 2014, p. 11). The numerous cancellations of surgeries on patient’s
appointments yet the doctors were available.
d) Miscommunication between various department
The frequent miscommunication between the various departments in the hospital lead to the
congestions in some departments while there were some departments without patients
(HOLLAND, ‘JODY’, HATCHER, & MEARES 2018, p. 70). For instance,
miscommunication about the number of free beds in the wards may lead to overcrowding in
the wards when excess patients are admitted
Recommendations to Reduce the Challenges
Business Process Reengineering
This process includes a complete change in the structure of an organization with the
aim of improving service delivery in terms of quality, productivity, and the cycle times
(Freshwater & Trapasso 2014, p. 486). This action is necessary when there is a feeling that
the management may be part of the causes of the challenges faced in the institution. From the
case study, it is noted that the challenges faced by at the Tragerfield Healthcare Centre are
not basically external but the lack of proper utilization of the available resources. Business
process redesigning applies in this case in that the challenges are more of internal origin. The
fact that the hospital’s management does not make good use of the available resources makes
it worth the overhaul. The hospital's management needs to be changed completely to avoid
incompetency among the workers (CURRIE, DAVIES, & FERLIE 2016, p 753). It can be
noted that some staff members have the habit of being lazy given that they have mastered the

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system and knew how to dodge the rules; such staff needs to be punished and transferred to
other facilities with more strict management.
This process basically involves an organizations rethinking how they carry out their
operations so as to come up with a drastic change towards improving their production. The
organization first starts with focusing on the objectives then come up with the best possible
ways of achieving them. Business being a set of logically related activities done to achieve a
predefined business result, the whole process can be changed in case it does not achieve the
specified target (Cheng, Palangkaraya, & Yong 2014, p. 860). Many rural based institutions
suffer challenges that need overhaul of the entire management system to rescue. This
operation takes place is steps as illustrated bellow.
Steps in Business Process Reengineering
1. Setting clear goals
The main aim of the process is to achieve a set of objectives which must be set and
stated clearly. It is after setting the goals that the company will come up with the procedure
on how to achieve them. Like in the case of Tragerfield Healthcare Centre, the main objective
is to improve the condition of the hospital and come up with the best way to adjust to the
growing patients’ population (CHOKSHI, DA, RUGGE, & SHAH 2014, p 780). It is after
the targets are set that the management would come up with the means and ways of achieving
them.
2. Identify and Prioritise the Business Process
The management involved in the Business process reengineering at the Tragerfield
Healthcare Centre need to know and understand the processes that are already in use t the
hospital. According to Dadzie, Dadzie, Winston, and Blankson (2013, p. 60). The team

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needs to know the importance of every step in the process, prioritize them, and draw a
performance rate in achieving the objectives. It is at this point that the team would know
which stages in the whole process failed to achieve the required target and which adjustments
are necessary.
3. Make data capture and processing a routine part of the work day
After identification of business processes and prioritizing them, the management
needs to follow the trend displayed by their operations. It is a continuous monitor and
studying that helps in identifying the weaknesses and the loopholes that has lead to the failure
in achieving the desired objective (Freshwater, & Trapasso, 2014, p. 470). Upon
identification of the strengths and weaknesses of various processes in the production, the
management comes up with the idea on which stages need to be adjusted and how the
adjustment should be done. This process does not need to create an extra job, the
management needs to follow the already running activities. The management may use
ProcessFolws to carry out this as it contain several options in doing this; these alternatives
include Intelligent Character Recognition, Voice Capture, as well as Optimal Character
Recognition
4. One workflow
In the process of implementing the Business Process Reengineering, the operations in
the organization need to be done in one channel. The process of changing the operations need
to be done within the already existing system and no need to create a parallel system to
handle the whole issue (Nahar, Kannuri, Mikkilineni, Murthy, & Phillimore 2017, p. 15). It
should be noted that the main aim of doing the overhaul in the management system is to
improve the production system and increase customer service delivery. Introducing a

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different channel to implement the changes would lead to increase in production cost, which
is contrarily, needs to be reduced.
This is a very simple one. Give the people who perform processes the power to make
decisions regarding them. If there are three levels of approval for a simple, everyday process
then ask yourself why. Strip away unnecessary red tape and create a single approval system
where possible.
5. Capture information once and at the source
During the implementation of the changes, the data on the trend production takes need
to be noted so as to know whether there is any improvement or stagnation. The data capturing
process and analysis, just like the implementation itself do not need a parallel structure to
achieve; the system should be within the existing system (Han, Wu, & Zhang 2018, p. 435).
This is an easy way to limit the amount of resources invested in the overhaul process;
resources such as time, energy, and workforce required. Incorporating the new system with
the original one gives the staff autonomy over their roles in the hospital, a fact that motivates
them hence improve their productivity. Several previous studies indicate that workers feel
more motivated when they have autonomy over their roles in the company than when the
reverse takes place Sheehan & Borowski 2014, p. 100). For the whole process to be
successful, it should be clear, concise, and controlled. The process should be a team work that
pulls experts from different departments in the organization based on the reality not
ideologies but working to achieve the basic theory of the organization.
Business Process Management
This is a concept learned under the discipline of Operations Management where there is
application of various means to carry out the business operations. According to Singh,
Mathiassen, and Mishra (2015, p. 660). The business operations under study here include

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how to discover, model, analyse, measure, improve, optimize, and apply technology in the
business (Sheehan & Borowski 2014, p. 100). The main goal this concept tries to achieve is
to maximize customer satisfaction in the organization. It should be noted that some business
processes do not fit with the application of the Business Process Management. For instance,
the repetitive or highly regulated processes are best here while non predictable operations
may not fit well. For this reason, business processes can be categorised depending on the
complexity, duration, volume, industry, and department.
This technique can be applied in the case of the Tragerfield Healthcare Centre given that the
operations in the hospital are mostly repetitive. As illustrated by Hwok-Aun Lee (2017, p.
560). All the operations in the hospital need to be put under stricken monitor, analysed and
adjustments done accordingly. The operations are designed, modeled, executed, monitored, and
optimized in accordance with the needs of the customers, the patients.
Conclusion
From the case study, it is learned that the challenges faced by an organization are sometimes
internally caused; like in the Tragerfield Healthcare Centre where the management complains
yet they are not utilizing the resources effectively (Vázquez-Barquero, & Rodríguez-Cohard
2016, p. 1140). To solve such cases, a complete overhaul of the management and all the
operations needs to be done under Business Process Reengineering. In carrying out this
process, all the operations of the hospital should be designed, modeled, executed, monitored,
and optimized in accordance with the needs of the customers, who are patients in this case.

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