AUBMC Case Study: Challenges, Culture, and Strategic Plan for Sayegh

This case study analyzes the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC), a non-profit teaching hospital facing internal and external challenges. The study examines the issues, including conflicts, demotivation, and political instability, using a SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It explores the corporate culture of AUBMC, highlighting its ineffectiveness due to poor employee relations, operational inefficiencies, and lack of adherence to ethical practices and legislation. The role of organizational culture in healthcare services is discussed, emphasizing its impact on employee motivation, patient satisfaction, and the building of relationships. The study concludes by presenting Sayegh's strategic plan, which includes defining mission and objectives, environmental scanning, strategy formulation, implementation, and evaluation, to address leadership issues and navigate the complexities of the healthcare environment. The plan focuses on improving operational efficiency, staff satisfaction, and patient perception to enhance AUBMC's performance.

Case Study

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
QUESTION 1...................................................................................................................................1
QUESTION 2...................................................................................................................................4
QUESTION 3...................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Present report is based on the case study of AUBMC. It is a non for profit teaching
hospital and medical centre, working in the volatile environment. Currently organization is
facing many internal and external challenges. Mohamed Sayegh join the medical centre and
worked for the betterment of the cited academic institution. Current assignment will discuss the
main challenges facing by the AUBMC (Perla, Bradbury and Gunther‐Murphy, 2013). Culture of
AUBMC and its role in the provision of healthcare services will be illustrated in this study. In the
last it will provide recommendations for strategic plan so that Mr. Sayegh can deal with
complexity of the situation at AUBMC.
QUESTION 1
There are different set of issues that are faced internally and externally. Due to these
factors the firm is facing serious issues. In this context, below given are the SWOT analysis
which will enable to provide proper information about the areas in which improvement is
required or the issues that are faced in the organization (Kern, Edwards and Kaushal, 2014). In
addition to this, it SWOT analysis will also help in determining the strength and opportunities
that are faced by cited firm. In this context, below given is the SWOT analysis which will help to
identify the internal and external factors of the firm:
Strength: Technology: AUBMC make sure that they update or make use of new technology so that
they will be able to provide their customers with high quality services. There are different
set of disease that has to be diagnosed and for almost all type of issues that are faced by
people are helpful to make sure that are able to provide patients with high quality services
(Lorenzi and Riley, 2013). Highly skilful: There are many professionals who work for different parts of the body.
They are very helpful in order to diagnose diverse set of issues that are faced by people.
When proper skills, these employees are able to make sure that people the desired
treatment and overcome the issue. In this context, it can be stated that both technology
and professional are able to make sure that patient get all type of services with high
quality (McCormack, Manley and Titchen, 2013). More specifically, there are high
number of physicians.
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 Services: In Lebanon itself, there are 167 hospitals which consists of 11533 beds. Among
all these more than 90% of these hospitals fall under private sector. There are mostly all
type of facilities or services that are provided.
Weaknesses:
Conflicts: The relationship between employee and employer is it proper. There is not
proper interaction among each other. Due to this issue, patient have given complaints against the
services that are provided by the firm. Due to conflict, there not proper interaction among nurse
and doctors. Due to this reason, patient fail to get proper treatment for the issues for which they
have been admitted.
Demotivation: Most of the staffs are demotivated and this is creating issue for the
performance. Further, demotivation is also raising issues of raising employees turnover. In order
to understand the problem of patient it is important for the professionals to understand the patient
and develop trust and confidence (Ostroff and Schulte, 2014). In this case, professional are not
able to do so. In this context, the issues is not identified properly and proper treatment is given to
patients.
Political situation of Middle East and North Africa: Before the Civil war Lebanon and
the Middle Eastern countries along with North Africa had great political stability and the country
was developing at good pace. But civil war made the government dysfunctional and the health
care situation became worse. AUBMC had to look after all the health care facilities of the
country which was not possible.
Opportunities:
AUBMC explored the opportunities after assessing its weaknesses during and post the
war. The organisation worked for extending its arms for more needy people by two ways that is
increasing employment and facilities. Staffing increased its competencies while providing
facilities helped the war struck people. The complete structure of the organisation can be updated
with more recruitments and it can also develop, enhance and improve the medical facilities
provided to the patients (Paine and et. al., 2011). Technologically advanced equipments and their
use can be imbibed. The hospital can achieve global brand reputation by expanding its medical
centres and giving high end health care and attention to the patients.
Threats:
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For extending facilities and recruiting staff be it doctors, nurses, house keepers or anyone
in the organisation needs funding. The proposed plan for making AUBMC an international brand
will require resources and ample amount of time to bring together the total strategy of expansion.
Financial insufficiency is the biggest threat for AUBMC which has been working in a
downtrodden and financially less capable country. The increasing levels of indebtedness are also
major threat for the institution (Park and Shaw, 2013).
Corporate culture of AUBMC
AUBMC is the leading institution and having good reputation in the market. Corporate
Culture includes values, belief, attitude of organization (IE, 2010). To make it ethical and healthy
it is very important to create optimistic culture in the workplace. Culture of particular firm can be
identified by analysing the interaction between employees and satisfaction level of customers.
As per the case study it is found that corporate culture of AUBMC is not effective. As
relationship between care workers is very poor. Due to operational inefficiency its working
performance has been get down to 10-15%. There is unjustified overtime in some department
that is why people are satisfy with the culture ( Yoder-Wise, 2014). AUBMC do not follow the
legislation properly. As according to the law it is very necessary to give timely training to staff
members but corporation do not focus on its employees. Apart from this still it is using the older
information system which increases the risk of data leakage (Swayne, Duncan and Ginter,
2012). It is essential to maintain confidentiality in the workplace. But to ignorance of data
protection act it is facing the issue. It makes its culture very poor and unethical. Toxic working
environment is the major reason of ineffective corporate culture. Employees do not get timely
promotions and it hires people at lower salary packages. It is completely harassment. In addition
to this, organization do not give them additional mandatory benefits such as accommodation
facilities etc. In AUBMC promotions are based on favouritism which is totally illegal and
unethical. As the government legislation of equality act it is necessary to maintain equality in
the workplace. There should not be any discrimination in the organization (Thakur, Hsu and
Fontenot, 2012). But AUBMC totally ignores this thing and promote employees on the bases on
favouritism rather than their performance (Perla, Bradbury and Gunther‐Murphy, 2013).
QUESTION 2
Role of organizational culture in healthcare services
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Role of corporate culture is very important as it decides the future success of the
workplace. Belief, values, attitude of workers and employer is affected by the organizational
culture. Healthy culture encourage workers to put their best efforts for the growth of the
enterprise (IE, 2010). As AUBMC needs to make its working environment more ethical and
should maintain equality in the workplace. By this way they will be motivated and will serve
better to patients. By giving them equal promotion opportunities, employer of AUBMC will be
able to increase satisfaction level of them and by this way reputation of the company will get
enhance. Corporate culture plays a role of builder of relationship (Rosin, 2016). Fair and
ethical environment creates a healthy working surrounding in which service users and givers
both feel satisfy and be loyal towards the brand. By making it more ethical and by following
legislation such as equality act, data protection act etc. AUBMC will be able to build
confidence and relationship of workers (Perla, Bradbury and Gunther‐Murphy, 2013).
By taking time to time feedback, AUBMC will be able to make its patients satisfy and
will be able to identify their needs. It will help the organization to implements such changes
which can improve the performance and efficiency of the medical centre (Paine and et. al,
2011). Corporate culture plays a role of supporter which supports in enhancing the quality of
work. As by following the ethical working culture AUBMC will be able to improve its
operations to great extent. By this way organization will be able to grow well. By this way
people will be able to share their feelings with their managers, it will assist in getting
innovative ideas by implementing in the workplace AUBMC will be able to create a brand
name and will gain loyalty and trust of employees and care users (Ostroff and Schulte, 2014).
QUESTION 3
Sayegh's strategic plan in order to deal with the complexity of the situation at AUBMC
Within the competing environment of healthcare there are different complexity of the
situation that are focused within the AUBMC it mainly include internal problems related with
leadership, management as well as finances (Ball, Weaver and Kiel,2013). On the other hand,
Sayegh also returned to Beirut as it was considered as the huge challenge for the medical centre
to lead them properly as internal politics as well as external politics of the country mainly impact
the activities of the medical centre. Sayegh arrived in Beirut in September 2009. An immediate
assessment of the situation at hand was essential before the strategic planning process started.
Evaluative research was done in three main areas:
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1. operational efficiency
2. staff satisfaction
3. patient perceptions and satisfaction
In order to deal with the foremost complexity of the situation that is improper leadership
within the medical care centre Sayegh suggests an effective strategic plan that support in dealing
with the complexity of situation (Best and et. al., 2012). The strategic planning of the medical
centre mainly focuses on the different steps such as- Mission and objectives: The foremost step in the strategic plan include framing mission
and objectives for the AUBMC so that they can easily deal with the complexity of the
situation related with improper leadership style in the medical care. Scanning of the environment: Another step in the process include scanning the
environment that is internal and external environment of the healthcare (Borkowski,
2015). With the help of accessing the external environment they can easily attain the
leadership styles that are followed in the other healthcare organization within the
industry. Formulation of strategy: After scanning the environment Sayegh formulate the strategy
within the medical care so that they can easily change the leadership styles that are
executing in the health care. Sayegh formulates the strategy through measuring the
behaviour and attitude of staff within the medical centre (Borkowski, 2015). implementation of the strategy: After formulating the strategy it focuses on
implementing the leadership strategy so that they can easily execute the strategy within
the organization so that employees or staff within the organization can easily acquire the
flexible or comfortable environment that successfully results in rendering proper care and
services to patients of the medical care (Chassin, 2013).
 Evaluation and control: The last step after implementation of strategy is proper
evaluation and control of the implemented strategy so that it might not affect the
activities and medical services of staff that they renders to their different disease patients.
On the other hand, another complexity of situation at the AUBMC was to lead the
medical institution as there were different internal factor and external politics factor of the
company. With the changing environment there are different factors that negatively and
positively impact the activities of the medical care. Therefore, there was complexity of taking
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decisions to move forward in the market (Harker, 2012). For attaining this objective Sayegh
focuses on suggesting the strategic plan that support in dealing with the complexity of the
situation. With the decisions of moving forward medical centre also focuses on the six elements
Expanding and updating the medical complex to add 200 more beds to its current 420-bed
capacity. Recruitment of top-calibre, highly specialized faculty members from the United States
and Europe. Third envisioned growth is provision of high-quality patient-centered care. Another
vision is to establishment of centres of excellence in research and clinical care. Another vision of
the medical centre is f orming strategic local, regional and international partnerships to facilitate
access to more patients, training opportunities and collaboration. The last goal is to ensure
maintaining excellence in education and training and achieving excellence in academic research.
The strategic planning for directing or moving further in the market they focuses on different
steps that are as follows- Setting objectives: The key step in the planning process include setting objectives by
Sayegh so that they can overcome the complexity of the situation that is to direct and lead
the medical centre in the international market so that it may easily meet the requirement
of different patients and it results in satisfying them to the most (Harris, Patel and Bowen,
2011). Determining what should be done to accomplish the goals: Another step after setting up
or formulating the business objectives it focuses on determining the ways or actions that
support the medical centre in moving further in the market and to attain the leading
position within the healthcare industry (IE, 2010). Implementation of the plan: After determining the way for accomplishing the complex
goal of the medical centre Sayegh focuses on implementing the way through which they
can easily attain the objectives that is related with taking effective decisions so that it
might take effective decisions for AUBMC. Along with this, through proper
implementation of the plan they can attain the leading position in the market as well as it
also support the centre in to easily cope up with the internal politics factors as well as
external politics of the country (Jacobs and et. al., 2013).
 Monitoring and evaluating the results: The last step in the strategic planing process is
monitoring and evaluation of the results that it through implementing the plan what
results have been evaluated in terms of leading and directing the company. The
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evaluation of results can be measured through assessing the reduction of wastage in the
medical centre. Another evaluation of results may be through considering the satisfaction
level of patients and service users from the activities and medical services that are
rendered by the staff and care practitioners within the medical centre (Kern, Edwards and
Kaushal, 2014).
CONCLUSION
From the aforementioned report it is concluded that there are various key internal and
external challenging factors that is faced by AUBMC. With the help of carrying out SWOT
analysis all the internal and external factors are been addressed properly. Furthermore, it has
been also measures the effectiveness of decisions made by Sayegh’s for investing on the
growth under the exceedingly adverse political and economical conditions. Along with this,
report also describe the corporate culture of the AUBMC and the role that organizational
culture plays in the provision of the health-related services. Lastly, the report has also
suggested strategic plan in order to deal with the complexity of the situation within the
AUBMC.
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REFERENCES
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Online
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