Organizational Structure Analysis: WMH Hospital Essay

This essay critically analyzes the organizational structure of Whitlam Memorial Hospital (WMH), a community hospital in Sydney. It begins by defining organizational structure and highlighting its importance. The essay then describes the current functional structure of WMH, exploring its strengths such as specialization and productivity, while also addressing weaknesses like management issues and unit coordination problems. The core of the essay involves proposing a new organizational structure for WMH to better align with its mission, vision, and goals, which include expanding services and improving patient care. The suggested structure emphasizes team-based management to overcome the limitations of the existing structure. The essay further discusses the advantages of the new structure, such as staff empowerment and diversified services, while also acknowledging potential challenges in its implementation. Finally, the essay emphasizes the crucial roles of mission, vision, and core values in shaping an organization's structure and success, concluding that an effective structure is essential for enhancing employee efficiency and improving service delivery. The essay is based on a case study where the hospital wishes to change its organizational structure to better align with the mission and goals of the hospital and the needs of the growing population in Sydney.

Running Head: ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE 0
Building Organizational Capacity in Healthcare
Student Details
4/6/2019

Organizational Structure 1
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Organizational Structure............................................................................................................2
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................8

Organizational Structure 2
Introduction
An organizational structure defines the ways in which certain kind of activities are
performed in order to meet the set goals and objectives of an organization. This report
discusses about the kind of organizational structure used by Whitlam Memorial Hospital
(WHM), a community hospital located in outer suburbs of Sydney in order to understand
about what an organizational structure is and what are its important, strengths and
weaknesses of a functional structure (Jbpub, 2019). The current organizational structure
followed by WMH is traditional and functional. The organization is aiming at introducing
new organizational structure which has the better capability of achieving high quality services
which efficiently respond to changing health need of people and patient centred. This new
structure for WMH is able to deal with the changing internal and external environments of
the organization and have potential of enhancing collaboration across teams and
communication. Hence, thesis statement for the essay is
“Healthcare system at WMH requires a better organizational structure”
Organizational Structure
Organizational structure plays an important role in the success of an organization and
every organization needs an effective organizational structure. Whitlam Memorial Hospital is
a community hospital located in Sydney, having capacity of 130 beds. Services offered by the
hospital includes surgical, acute medical, obstetric, and emergency. Due to increase in
population in the area, the hospital is focusing on increasing its range of services to meet the
requirements of the people. In order to make these changes, WMH has budget for
restructuring the facilities and structure of organization which includes speciality services
such as paediatric, renal services, cancer, trauma services, cardiovascular, community and

Organizational Structure 3
aged care services (Ginter, 2018). There is target of increasing bed numbers also from 130 to
250. Therefore, there is need of developing a plan for changing the organizational structure.
Before discussing about new organizational structure, first it is important to understand the
definition of organizational structure and the reasons behind its importance.
Definition of organizational structure is provided above, hence here only the reasons of its
importance are discussed below:
 An effective organizational structure provides a clear definition of authority and better
understanding of policies and objectives of an organization.
 Organizational structure implements both pattern and channels of communication.
Hence, it assists proper administration.
 It coordinates the activities of component parts to assist in achieving the objectives of
an organization.
 Activities’ diversification and growth of an organization are facilitated by an effective
organizational structure.
 Organizational structure helps in developing creative thinking and taking initiation of
employees which leads to increase in their cooperation and will to work.
 Organizational structure clears and simplifies the way for implementing policies and
achieving goals.
 It eliminates chances of function duplication and ensures maximum production with
minimum efforts (Davoren, 2019).
One of the most common organizational structures is functional structure. Functional
structure allows organizations to group employees as per similar or specialized tasks or roles.
Functional structure is well suited for organizations which are stable and whose business
strategies are less prone to changes because bureaucracy level makes it difficult for

Organizational Structure 4
organizations to respond quickly to market changes (Marquis & Huston, 2015). From the
case study of WMH it is clear that the current organizational structure of it is functional
structure. Following are the strengths and weaknesses of WMH organizational structure:
Strengths
 Specialization: Employees at WMH are grouped according to their skills and
knowledge and hence letting them to become a specialist in their respective fields. It
helps to bring about skill development and in-depth knowledge among employees at
WMH and thus lead to achieve goals of WMH (Ashkenas, Ulrich, Jick, & Kerr,
2015).
 Productivity: Specialization improves operational efficiencies which lead to increase
productivity levels. As workers at WMH have expertise in their fields, hence it helps
them in performing roles efficiently, quickly, and with more confidence. This
minimizes occurrence of work-related errors. Its clear nature of career path enhances
motivation among employees at WMH to progress their careers.
Weaknesses
 Management Issues: Functional structure is considered as rigid because it has high
degree of formalization and standardized ways of operation. It also making decision-
making process inflexible and slow. Since bureaucracy is high in this structure, poor
horizontal coordination among various departments can be seen at WMH (McNaught
& Shaw, 2017). Also, WMH has restricted views of goals and lack of innovation
causing effects on employees’ motivation. As WMH is looking for making expansion,
this organizational structure will further increase the level of autonomy and makes
coordination between all units will become more difficult.

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 Unit Coordination: Functional units work with increased efficiency but cooperation
level drops with each other. It is also an issue at WMH where various groups face
difficulty in working with each other as they are not ready to cooperate and thus fights
occur among them (Davoren, 2019). This cause decrease in commitment and delays in
projects.
To meet the changing needs of increasing population in Sydney, WMH has decided to
restructure its current organizational structure as the present structure is not able to meet the
patients’ demands. Current structure of WMH does not allocate the responsibilities among
staff and thus causing lacks in service delivery efficiency. The new organizational structure
for WMH should be such that which divides the employees of hospital in specific sections
(Harper, 2015). This kind of structure will foster harmonious adjustment between employees.
This structure also helps in achieving the vision and mission of WMH and quality care
services can be provided to patients.
WMH is facing the issue of organizational structure which is causing hindrance for staff
of the hospital to meet the demands of people. Therefore, the management team of the
hospital is looking for strategies which help in enhancing efficiency and productivity of the
hospital. One way they decided is recruitment of highly-skilled employees and staff members
and offering treatment at reasonable costs. WMH can adopt management approach as its new
organizational structure where all members work as a team and there is no boss. This
approach will allow members to share ideas with each other and discover strategies that can
improve hospital’s service delivery process (S, 2019). It is a better approach in the way of
having groups or teams which work together to identify new strategies and ideas instead of
having a single boss who has all the pressure and responsibilities of identifying ways and
strategies for efficient delivery of services at WMH.

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Advantages of new organizational structure of WMH includes by responsibility allocation
to staff, the employees have knowledge about their specific duties and complete them with
supreme efficiency. This new organizational structure will diversify the services of the
hospital. As only few diseases were treated in old structure, the new structure provides
treatment for more diseases by hiring high-skilled employees. New organizational structure
provides ways of performing tasks which are aligned with the mission, vision, and core
values of the hospital. The new organizational structure of however consist of some
disadvantage also such as hospital staff may have problems and issue in adopting the new
structure of the hospital as they have become used to of following old strategies and ways of
performing their duties (Haux, Winter, Ammenwerth, & Brigl, 2013). Hence, this is the only
disadvantage associated with the new organizational structure of WMH.
An organization’s decisions, strategies, and effectiveness depend on three things:
Mission, Vision, and its Core Values. Vision of an organization refers its aim what it wants to
become in future. Mission defines the purpose for organization’s existence. If it is described
in a short statement then it looks like description about what an organization wants, what its
operational ways, and what are its future goals (Dubois, et al., 2013). Core values are the
decisions and strategies of an organization to achieve its mission and vision. Mission and
vision of an organization plays strategic roles in its success as it helps the employees to
mirror their activities with the goals and objective of the organization and with the structure
of organization (Zingg, et al., 2015). Mission and vision statements of an organization
influence its structure by laying a foundation for it.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion it can be concluded that the organizational
structure of an organization affects the ability of its employees to perform their tasks. Hence,

Organizational Structure 7
the structure of an organization is such that it improves the efficiency of its employees to
deliver services to its users. This essay discusses the case study of Whitlam Memorial
Hospital where its organizational structure is traditional one which is the main constraints in
its growth. But, the management team decided to adopt a new organizational structure for the
hospital which aligns with the mission, vision, and core values of the hospital. The new
organizational structure adopted by the hospital is management approach in which there will
be no boss and all staff members work as a team. This will help the hospital in meeting
changing demands of increased population in Sydney.

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References
Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T., & Kerr, S. (2015). The boundaryless organization:
Breaking the chains of organizational structure. US: John Wiley & Sons.
Davoren, J. (2019). Functional Structure Organization Strength & Weakness. Retrieved from
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/functional-structure-organization-strength-weakness-
60111.html
Dubois, C. A., D'amour, D., Tchouaket, E., Clarke, S., Rivard, M., & Blais, R. (2013).
Associations of patient safety outcomes with models of nursing care organization at
unit level in hospitals. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 25(2), 110-
117.
Ginter, P. M. (2018). The Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations. US: John
Wiley & Sons.
Harper, C. (2015). Organizations: Structures, Processes and Outcomes. UK: Routledge.
Haux, R., Winter, A., Ammenwerth, E., & Brigl, B. (2013). Strategic information
management in hospitals: an introduction to hospital information systems. Berlin:
Springer Sciences & Business Media.
Jbpub. (2019). Understanding Healthcare Management. Retrieved from
http://samples.jbpub.com/9780763759643/59643_CH02_5289.pdf
Marquis, B. L., & Huston, C. J. (2015). Organizational structure. In Leadership roles and
management functions in nursing: Theory and application. US: Lippincott Williams
& Wilkins.

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McNaught, K., & Shaw, G. (2017). Orientation to mission: Assessing the perceptions of
effectiveness of an in-house orientation program focussed on mission, vision and
values within a large-scale, not-for-profit, private hospital.
S, D. (2019). Organisational Structure: Meaning and Importance. Retrieved from
http://www.businessmanagementideas.com/organisational-structure/organisational-
structure-meaning-and-importance/3483
Zingg, W., Holmes, A., Dettenkofer, M., Goetting, T., Secci, F., Clack, L., & Pittet, D.
(2015). Hospital organization, management, and structure for prevention of health-
care-associated infection: a systematic review and expert consensus. The Lancet
Infectious Diseases, 15(2), 212-224.