Strategic Leadership In Health Care Essays Example

Geisinger Health System is a non-profit organization that focused on the delivery of high-quality, innovative health care products to 2.6 million people living in Pennsylvania. The initial goal of the project is to increase performance by improving the quality of the products and services as well as the satisfaction of the patients by redesigning the delivery of care. The main idea was redesigning care processes in a package-priced portfolio of services called ProvenCare. As a result of studies and innovative practices, which included changes in coordination, administration and management, Geisinger Health System reached significant success.
The system invested huge amount of money into software, hardware and various ancestors of electronic health record believing that technologies would allow better accountability. As soon as EHR was successfully implemented, Geisinger Health System became involved into the project called “MyGeisinger” allowing patients to access their health information, make appointments and control treatment. The next step was implementing better care coordination as it promised greater accountability and better patient satisfaction. Care management included reducing hospital readmissions by improving the work of the call centers. Information management included advancement of the medical home model by engaging care team. Such changes required implementation of additional incentives for physicians who participate in the project. Therefore, a better coordination of funds allocation was needed to make the project successful.
However, the most important thing was bringing up new culture that would foster higher performance within the organization. Internal incentives and motivation provided a solid ground for better cooperation and teamwork within the members of the system. The ProvenCare package, thus, was changed based on evidence practices. The entire team worked on making package-priced services better and more effective to live up to the patients’ expectations. Moreover, leaders paid due attention to higher reliability and medical safety as well. It brought up significant positive effects and impacted Geisinger Health System.
The biggest advantage of Geisinger Health System is its complex approach. The decision to address issues related to both work with patients, technological advancement and team building demonstrates the maturity of the leadership team which guided staff along the massive shifts and changes. They addressed such issues as the provision of care and its quality, reliability and administration, financial component, management of information, leadership and staff management, motivation and team building. Therefore, the main areas of alterations were care coordination, organizational culture, innovation and leadership. Apart from real changes in the practice of medical workers, it was necessary to change the way the organization is managed. Better cooperation guaranteed positive outcomes of the issues addressed.
One of the main strategies was increasing accountability and reliability. The system inverted huge money in the provision of electronic health record and a portal called “My Geisinger” to ensure that all patients are covered by a single base. This also allowed making some statistics regarding the effectiveness of services offered to the patients. Care coordination required changes in case management and care systems. Such strategies as risk assessment allowed preventing complications, while call center management of high-risk patients reduced hospital readmissions. Introduction of financial initiatives allowed motivating staff to search for better practices and more effective decisions together. Moreover, building teams and changing them with tasks also brought positive results that were measured by the increased amount of patients and better results in the ranking systems. The level of customers’ satisfaction was also considered as a marker of success. The most effective measurement to assess the success rate of these issues is based on numerical results of the performance.
The effectiveness of the changes was evidenced by significant improvements in in-hospital mortality, decrease in patients with any complications, huge fall in readmissions and an increase in those patients who were safely sent home. Other techniques of measurement of success are also evidence-based. It means that health care establishment compared the situation before and after to make a conclusion regarding the success of the strategic changes. Most importantly, the level of patient satisfaction increased by 49%, and an 8% increase was observed in physician productivity. There are lots of other indicators including follow up care and other also prove the effectiveness of the issues addressed and strategies used for completing the change process. Such positive dynamics impacted the level of same-day appointments in primary care. Geisinger Medical Center was ranked as one of the top in the US as well as got some valuable federal and nationwide rewards that signified that Geisinger Health System became a benchmark in the country.
The most important lessons, that the present case study shows, are the necessity of teamwork in the health care facilities, personal motivation of each of the participants and careful and complex planning of all changes initiated. Leadership team in Geisinger Medical Center utilized performance-based compensation system and managed to motivate people to find more efficient ways to deliver services and products. The goal of becoming a top medical center in the US turned out achievable due to higher rate of turnover among the staff at the beginning, but better performance rate at the end. The organization became successful due to the leadership that helped in achieving the vision of becoming a national benchmark for health care service delivery combined with a reasonable compensation system and careful planning with clear outlining of the main strategic goals.
The way used by Geisinger Health System can be used for the companies that deal with other things apart from health care. Their example is the example of effective leadership and management that ensure that a sequence of well-thought complex changes will end with success. I think that motivating people is the most important part. Staff should be goal-oriented and creative, so that financial incentives are the right thing to offer. Moreover, people should have a clear vision of what they work for. Mission and vision statement are a must for the company that wants to be successful in the competitive market. Additionally, the leadership team should encourage innovation and creativity at the workplace as well as empower staff to search best practices and solutions. Being an integral part of common success is very important for the employees. Also, I believe that careful management and sequence of actions is the key to success of Geisinger’s leaders. Overwhelming strategy left no loophole where failure could have happened. This is a good example of change management and change implementation with relatively low level of change resistance and failed ideas.
Good leadership is the main component of success of any company, especially in Health Care where strategic planning is crucially important. In the era of globalization of medical services, the standards of health care provision are being changed, and catching up with these shifts or even outperforming them is the key to successful performance of the medical center.