Organizational Structure Analysis and Recommendations for SCH

This report analyzes the organizational structures of The Sydney Community Hospital (SCH), focusing on the limitations and advantages of its current functional structure. The study identifies the need for a more effective structure to meet the hospital's evolving mission and strategic goals, particularly in light of increasing population and a desire to expand services. The report proposes a matrix organizational structure as an alternative, detailing its benefits in terms of dual reporting, improved collaboration, and responsiveness to change. A comparison is made between the authority and responsibility in the current and suggested structures, highlighting how the matrix structure better aligns with SCH's objectives. The advantages and limitations of the matrix structure are discussed, including its ability to foster multidisciplinary teams and its potential for increased management costs and communication challenges. The report concludes that the matrix structure is a more suitable model for SCH, enabling the hospital to enhance its healthcare services and achieve its expansion goals. The report also provides visual representations of both the functional and matrix structures in the appendix.

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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Limitations and advantages of functional organizational structure.............................................1
Identification of an alternative organizational structure.............................................................2
Comparison of authority and responsibility of current and suggested structure towards meeting
organization goals........................................................................................................................2
Advantages and limitation of the suggested structures................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5
APPENDIX-1..................................................................................................................................6
APPENDIX-2..................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
People face different type of health related issues and in order to overcome the problems,
it is essential that there are professional who have vast knowledge with respect health (Ashkenas,
Ulrich and Kerr, 2015). Present study is based on case study of The Sydney Community Hospital
(SCH). As per the case, there are certain set of issues that are faced by within this organization.
This report cover limitations and advantages of existing functional structure. Lastly, it also
includes benefits and limitations that are faced in the new structure that is suggested for SCH.
Limitations and advantages of functional organizational structure
There are different type of organizational structures that can be implemented by the firm.
In accordance with the case, SCH has made use of functional organizational structure. Each
structure has their own advantages and disadvantages. With this respect, below given are
advantages and limitations of functional organizational structure:
As per Mercer and Mattick, (2013) there are high level of specification in functional
structure. There are different type of departments which are developed and each one is
responsible for performing their part of roles effectively. The organization structure that is
currently used is described in Appendix 1.However, one of the issue that the rate of team work
that is present in such structure is low. As per the case, main aim of is to deliver world standard
health care for the community. For this purpose, it is essential that there is effective team work in
order to deliver world class standards. Further, all the employees who have vast understanding
for the type of roles and responsibility that has to be played by them, then they contribute
effectively towards the growth of the firm. Halliday, Matthiessen and Matthiessen, (2014) stated
that there are issues for top managers in order to maintain control when organization is
expanded. In the given case of SCH, the rate of population has raised and this has required the
need for making changes in the structure that was followed by SCH. The division of work is
done in effective manner and this way all the employees get to know the type of roles that has to
be played by them. On the other hand, there are condition in which the rate of confusion is high
as it is too completed. There are number of authorised persons who provide orders due to which
the employee get confused to follow the multiple instructions given.
As per the above given description, it can be stated that SCH needs to make changes in
their structure so that they will be able to hire more care providers (Friesen, Kay and
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Galinsky,2014). This way the increase in population can be provided with maintain quality
standards.
Identification of an alternative organizational structure
In order to achieve the new mission and strategic goals of the organisation, cite health
care provider should made use of Matrix organizational structure. This is a type of structure in
which there is a duel reporting that is required to be made. When compared with functional
structure, employees have to report to directly to functional manager but in matrix, there is
another manager who is just under functional manager. The suggested organization structure is
suggested in Appendix 2. It is highly effective as it helps in providing proper directions and
reduction in errors that are made. As per Bouchard, Mesgarani and Chang, (2013) it is a type of
hybrid structure as it is combination of two or more structure. The direct reporting is given to
project manager who is responsible to give orders and direct them. This way the time consumed
is reduced and employees are able to achieve them in effective manner. Further, the project
manager have direct interaction with care providers so that they are able to identify the areas in
which they require improvement (Strange, Witterand Moser, 2014). As per the findings made,
individuals are delivered with training and develop so that they will be able to overcome the
issues that are faced by them. This structure is highly effective in managing large firm and as per
the case the type of issue that are faced by SCH, it is important to make sure that there are
changes made in which many employees are hired and proper care can be delivered. When this
structure will be followed, then it will be favourable for SCH as they can achieve the type of
objectives that they have developed. There are in total 110 beds which they want to make it to
200. This means, it required new care providers who will be able to deliver proper care to the
patients and support the healthcare to achieve their desired goals.
Comparison of authority and responsibility of current and suggested structure towards meeting
organization goals.
According to the mission and goals of SCH ,the Matrix structure can be more proper
alternative than the traditional functional structure in comparison with lines of authority and
responsibility.
The current structure used in the organization is a line and staff structure. This means that the
authority and responsibility are defined clearly as to simplify the relations but it is not good for
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the future objectives to create a team of multidisciplinary for performing specialist services.
However,on the other side the suggested structure may have a formal vertical and horizontal
chair of command. For an instance,manger of nursing of pediatrics have the responsibility
towards both vice president of nursing services vertically and vice president of pediatric
horizontally(Sherwood and Barnsteiner, 2017).
Such is type of dual-authority hierarchical design and can be essential for organization to
meet up their desired goals and objectives as it not only pay attention to the function but also
towards the result of product. The new structure serve towards the mission of SCH by providing
higher quality services to the both community and patients. For achievement of better health care
the traditional structure becomes less efficient and less responsive in providing services. The
authority that is given to project manger and resources availability in traditional functional
structure is low in comparison with matrix structure.
This new matrix structure will help the SCH to meet the objectives of the organization by
giving high quality services to both patients and community. The matrix structure provides better
collaboration over disciplinary team and is responsive to the changing environment in
comparison with the traditional structure(Pierre, J.S. and Conley, 2017).
As in new matrix structure there are two types of mangers one is functional managers that
are in charge of specialize resources such as production,quality control etc. whereas the product
or business mangers take care of one or more products and develop authorize strategies for
product and equal power is given to them in this way both function and products are checked in
matrix structure.
Advantages and limitation of the suggested structures
Due to new strategic plans and goals of SCH the old structure no longer fit to achieve the
target due to its various limitations. To meet the new goals of SCH there is a requirement of
another organizational structure that would give better services and facilitate new mission and
goal of organization (O'brien, 2017).
So to accomplish this Matrix structure can be used for providing better services. But this also
have some advantages and limitations.
Various advantages of matrix structure are as follows-:
 This structure incorporate both functional and divisional design that gives both vertical
and horizontal chain of command.
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 It develops a better collaboration across multidisciplinary teams.
 Respond is fast to changing environment.
 Increase the accountability for usage of resources by making decision making closer to
the customers.
 According to the mission and vision of SCH the matrix structure will be more
appropriate in comparison with traditional function structure. They focus on single project.
The limitations of matrix structure are as follows-:
 There is a concept of dual authority in matrix structure. This may lead to conflict and
uncertainty among employees with dual system authority. For an instance one manger is
given responsibility for coordinating the projects that are running across various division
of department horizontally and other is given responsibility for taking care of patients
functional operations. This will need more management costs and better technical
information support. An effective communication skills is also needed to overcome dual
reporting system and conflicts related priorities (Adam,Osborne and Welch, 2017).
 The matrix structure decision making process is slow as the information is needed to be
shared among various parties .
 The administration cost is high and extra attention is given to internal relations.
Conclusion
Summing up the case study it focused on Sydney Community hospital(SCH), a hospital
located in outer northern suburbs of the Sydney which gives accurate medical,surgical and
emergency care. Due to increase in population over past 15 years the hospital reviewed the
requirement of the growing community and is changing its services in response of that review.
The government have supported this by allocating resources to rebuild the hospital
structure. There will be increase in number of speciality services. Number of bad will also
increase. The current structure followed in the organization that is traditional functional structure
cannot meetup the new goals and mission of SCH so there is a need to change this structure and
use matrix structure that will be efficient in meeting up the new objectives of SCH.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Adam, S., Osborne, S. and Welch, J. eds., 2017. Critical care nursing: science and practice.
Oxford University Press.
Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., & Kerr, S. (2015). The boundaryless organization: Breaking the chains
of organizational structure. John Wiley & Sons.
Bouchard, K. E., Mesgarani, N., & Chang, E. F. (2013). Functional organization of human
sensorimotor cortex for speech articulation. Nature. 495(7441). 327.
Egenes, K.J., 2017. History of nursing. Issues and trends in nursing: Essential knowledge for
today and tomorrow, pp.1-26.
Friesen, J. P., Kay, A. C., & Galinsky, A. D. (2014). Seeking structure in social organization:
Compensatory control and the psychological advantages of hierarchy. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology. 106(4). 590.
Halliday, M., Matthiessen, C. M., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). An introduction to functional
grammar. Routledge.
Mercer, T. R., & Mattick, J. S. (2013). Structure and function of long noncoding RNAs in
epigenetic regulation. Nature structural & molecular biology. 20(3). 300-307.
O'brien, M.E., 2017. Spirituality in nursing. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Pierre, J.S. and Conley, D.M., 2017. Introduction to gerontological nursing. Gerontological
Nursing Competencies for Care, p.1.
Sherwood, G. and Barnsteiner, J. eds., 2017. Quality and safety in nursing: A competency
approach to improving outcomes. John Wiley & Sons.
Strange, B. A., Witter, M. P., & Moser, E. I. (2014). Functional organization of the hippocampal
longitudinal axis. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 15(10). 655-669.
Online
Traditional Functional structure. 2017. [Online] Available through:
<https://www.processorientation.com/?p=82/>. [Accessed on 11th August 2017]
Matrix structure. 2017. [Online] Available through: <https:www.edrawsoft.com/orgchart/matrix-
structure-diagram.php/>. [Accessed on 11th August 2017]
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APPENDIX-1
Illustration 1: Traditional functional structure
Source:(Traditional Functional structure, 2017)
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APPENDIX-2
Illustration 2: Matrix structure
Source:(Matrix structure, 2017)
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