GM 599 Unit 1 Assignment Statement of the Problem

GM599: Applied Research Project

Unit 1- Statement of the Problem

A Lack of Effective Leadership in the Health System

Kaplan University

Introduction

Over the last few years, the Senior Executive Team finally detected the symptoms that the health system had a very heavy sadness in the air, which made the atmosphere depressing for the children and their families. The constant beeping of different machines did not improve anyone’s mood, it frustrated patients and their families, even the staff. A place for healing turn to a toxic place, where everyone’s mood is affected. With a background in the hospitality industry, many of the current managers were hired to bring Quality Service in health care system. Managers were charged to bring the hotel amenities in, new room set up, create a kid’s friendly environment, a family centered care and design a customer service training for the staff to get them ready to serve. It is expected that every departments within the health system will collaborate and work together to reach this goal.

Statement of Problem

The problem was the lack of effective leadership to implement and introduce quality service tools to the health system staff to service the patients. The staff at the time did not have the slightest idea why they would want to turn the hospital into a hotel for the sick. According to Zurich, (2012), quality is equally important to a service business as to a manufacturing one. The ability to meet customer needs and exceed their expectations by providing a healing, kids friendly, warm environment promise customer loyalty, increase referrals, and how the community feel about the health care system in the city of Philadelphia.

Intended Audience

The lack of effective leadership in quality service had a direct effect on the patients and their families’ needs and satisfactions; also the stakeholders of the health system and the organization’s bottom line. According to (Liden, Wayne, Chenwei, & Meuser 2014), in a research of 961 employees working in 71 restaurants, of a modest restaurant chain, they investigated a key assumption of servant leadership theory. It suggests to emulate the leaders; behavior by prioritized the needs of their stakeholders, the patients and their families, the entire staff above their own, automatically it made a huge difference in the health system customer satisfaction rating. Servant leadership is based on the basis that leaders who are best able to motivate followers are those who are more concerned about others than themselves, that are humble, which activates strong relationships with followers and encourages them to be fully engaged in their work. These are the type of leadership that is it going to take to infuse quality service in the health system.

Quality service is one that meets the customer requirements for its target market, (the sick children and their families), therefore quality is based on the knowledge that customer’s needs, expectations, and demands are met are or exceeded. According to Zurich, (2012), a business that is serious about quality goes above and beyond for their customers. It actively manages and measures the quality of the service it provides to make sure its customers receive the best possible level of customer care. According to Quito, (2015), on August 21, the city of Denmark opened what’s called the Patient Hotel, a 74 room building that provides accommodations for patients that are coming from a far for an exam or treatment. For the long-term patients, a tranquil sky-lit space that provides a temporary escape from the regular hospital’s blaring machines and daily hustle and bustle.

Value to the Audience

To ensure that customers have a positive experience, the managers focused on clearly identified the customers’ needs, put in place effective planning and processes, and the right resources (people and systems) for the job, providing in-depth employee training to ensure that all staff are customer focused. They also set appropriate and achievable goals, they continued measured and monitored all progress against these targets for improvement (Zurich, 2012).

The changes that occurred to start the process were similar to the Patient Hotel, we ensured that daylight was plenty, warm colors on the walls create a welcome and pleasant atmosphere which was comforting during these difficult time (Quito 2015). We introduced a clutter free initiative to encourage the families not over pack, by limiting what they bring to the environment. Spaces are designed with the patients’ need in mind, rewired for easy communication with nurses and medical staff. Walls, flooring and furniture are easy to clean to prevent the spread of infection. Surfaces had to comply with the strict hygiene demands of health care but still project the warmth of a hotel (Quito 2015). The Atrium is filled with the natural sun light so guests have a welcoming and inviting environment, and every room has the ability to connect the Atrium or outside light.

Summary

The health system suffered the lack of effective leadership to implement and introduce quality service tools to the health system staff to service the patients. According to (Liden, et. al. 2014), the leadership approach that is best suited toward developing employees to their full potential is the servant leadership. It will become progressively more relevant and increase in size of the service sector. Therefore, the executive leadership of the health system, hired the service experts from the hospitality industry, to come to incorporate and infuse quality service into their corporation. By creating a kid friendly, warm and inviting environment for the children to be in a healing environment. This process helped the bottom line tremendously, by increasing customer loyalty, increase referrals, and change the view on how their community feel about the health system in the Philadelphia area. Being the leader in the health care system comes with a great sense of responsibility to lead.

For these initiative to remain successful, the efforts need to be managed and a quality assurance should be put in place to capture review results regularly against its own or industry-set benchmark standards. This can help to identify problems and take steps to prevent problem from occurring or getting worst. At every stage quality needs to be considered not just at the end. Processes and procedures can be measured against set standards or best practice, benchmarks within the industry (Zurich, 2012). Total quality management (TQM) is an approach that seeks to ensure that all parts of a process are right the first time. A TQM approach requires every employee to take responsibility for delivering quality, and it looks at improvement both people and processes involve through continuous improvement.

References

Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Chenwei, L., & Meuser, J. D. (2014). Servant Leadership and Serving Culture: Influence on Individual and Unit Performance. Academy Of Management Journal57(5), 1434-1452. doi:10.5465/amj.2013.0034

Quito, A., (2015). In Scandinavia, “patient hotels” provide an alternative to hospitals. Retrieve from: http://qz.com/545967/in-scandinavia-patient-hotels-provide-an-alternative-to-hospitals/

Zurich. (2012). Creating quality customer care (). London: Business Case Studies LLP. Retrieved from: http://lib.kaplan.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1669465664?accountid=34544

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