Research a health care organization or network that spans several states with in the United States (United Healthcare, Vanguard, Banner Health, etc.). Assess the readiness of the health care organization or network you chose in regard to meeting the health care needs of citizens in the next decade.
Prepare a 1,000-1,250 word paper that presents your assessment and proposes a strategic plan to ensure readiness. Include the following:
Describe the health care organization or network.
Describe the organization\’s overall readiness based on your findings.
Prepare a strategic plan to address issues pertaining to network growth, nurse staffing, resource management, and patient satisfaction.
Identify any current or potential issues within the organizational culture and discuss how these issues may affect aspects of the strategic plan.
Propose a theory or model that could be used to support implementation of the strategic plan for this organization. Explain why this theory or model is best.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required. Health Organization Evaluation Essay
Health Organization Evaluation (Vanguard Health Systems)
Introduction
The management and leadership of healthcare organizations have a big role to play in meeting constantly increasing healthcare needs in America (Salmond & Echevarria, 2017). The changing demographics in the US, as well as the diversity of the patients’ needs, require effective planning to be able to meet the needs in the future. This paper thus examines the ability of Vanguard to meet consumer needs and recommend a strategic plan for the organization.
Description of the Organization
Vanguard owns and operates acute care hospitals, health plans, and outpatient facilities within Texas, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, and Massachusetts. The objective of Vanguard is to assist communities to attain health for life through the provision of ideal personalized care within a highly reliable care setting (Checkland et al., 2019). Vanguard hospitals provide a variety of services such as cardiology, internal medicine, neurosurgery, general surgery, oncology, obstetric, orthopedics, and diagnostic and emergency services. Vanguard also provides select tertiary services like level II and III neonatal intensive care and open-heart surgery. Vanguard health systems also provide ancillary and outpatient care services like radiology, laboratory, outpatient surgery, physical therapy, and respiratory therapy. The organization also has ambulatory surgery centers, psychiatric units, and rehabilitation services is some of the hospitals (Checkland et al., 2019).
Readiness of Vanguard to meet Health Care Needs
Vanguard has been growing steadily ever since it was found in 1997. The organization started its operations after acquiring a hospital in Arizona and after that Vanguard expanded its reach to include hospitals within Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, and Illinois. Vanguard also has two surgery centers and primary healthcare plans in California. The organization currently employs over 36,800 and it continues to perform well financially (Checkland et al., 2019). The organization employs qualified nursing staff and physicians who provide expertise and high quality of care. The availability and expertise of skilled physicians and competent nursing staff as well as the convenience and location of Vanguard hospitals make the organization the patient’s choice and also enables it to meet the growing health needs of citizens.
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Strategic Plan
Growth
Vanguard health systems have strategically continued to expand its operations by acquiring more hospitals and other forms of care services in different regions to cater for the increased healthcare needs in the US. Vanguard continues to increase its service offerings, throughput, and convenience in the outpatient surgery facilities, emergency departments, and other ancillary units in its hospitals to address the general shift from inpatient services to outpatient services (Checkland et al., 2019). The organization also continues to upgrade its resources by securing competent healthcare practitioners and using technologically innovative equipment so support the organizational comprehensive service offerings. Vanguard also continues to focus on core healthcare services that include oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, neurology, and women’s health services. The organization also runs sub-acute units like skilled nursing facilities, rehabilitation, and mental health services to meet the patient’s needs, while increasing care management efficiencies and volumes. Health Organization Evaluation Essay
Resource Management
The most valuable resource at Vanguard is the nurse workforce. The organization has thus implemented a nursing professional practice model aimed to transform care delivery. The model integrates leadership, professional development, clinical practice, and interprofessional collaboration to foster personalized, innovative, and evidence-based nursing practice (Davis et al., 2020). Physicians are also an important resource in the organization to ensure the provision of clinically superior care services (Davis et al., 2020). As a result, the organization continues to recruit physicians to the communities served by Vanguard using employment and non-employment initiatives.
Overall, the senior management team at Vanguard manages the operations and resources of multi-facility hospital networks. The management team of each hospital consists of a CEO, chief operating officer, chief nursing officer, and chief financial officer (Checkland et al., 2019). The local management teams need to work in collaboration with the corporate staff to manage the organizational resources, including the healthcare practitioners.
Staffing
Vanguard health systems has over 36,800 employees. The organization recruits qualified healthcare providers to ensure the delivery of high-quality care (Checkland et al., 2019). However, the organization is aware of the nursing shortage and high nursing turnover nationwide and this also affects the organization. To address the nursing shortage, Vanguard established a nursing school that offers various healthcare educational programs, with the nursing program having the highest enrollment (Checkland et al., 2019). A high number of students become permanent employees at Vanguard hospitals. Vanguard hospitals award staff privileges to licensed physicians serving in different other hospitals. Even though Vanguard endeavor ensures recruitment of adequate physicians, the organization faces challenges when it comes to recruiting some types of physician specialists whose services are in high demand. Health Organization Evaluation Essay
Patient Satisfaction
The organization implemented a comprehensive mentoring program to assess patient satisfaction basing on the patient-centered experience. The recruitment of skilled nursing staff and specialist physicians who provide patients with high quality and coordinated care daily for 24 hours in all hospitals has been shown to improve patient experience and patient satisfaction (Checkland et al., 2019). Moreover, Vanguard continues to invest in the latest technologies including telehealth to improve the patient experience.
Issues in the Organizational Culture
The culture of innovation continues to dominate Vanguard organization. Through the culture of innovation, Vanguard has implemented various technologies that have facilitated improve efficiency for the organizational operations and better quality of care (McCarthy et al., 2019). The organizational leadership is visionary with both the leadership and the staff dedicated to making real improvements in the organization. According to the employees, the management is supportive and employees work together as a team. Collaboration and teamwork are vital aspects of Vanguard culture. However, some staff members feel that the bureaucracy in the organization sometimes creates inefficiency in organizational operations.
Theory to Support the Implementation of the Strategic Plan
Roger’s innovation diffusion theory will be used to implement a strategic plan. The theory explains the process of deciding to implement the knowledge of innovation. The theory includes five stages namely knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and finally confirmation (Mohammadi et al., 2018). Therefore, Roger’s theory is appropriate for the implementation of the strategic plan because the first step of knowledge has already been addressed. The next step will involve persuading the relevant stakeholders to support the implementation of the strategic plan and after weight the pro and cons of the strategic plan, the implementation will follow (Mohammadi et al., 2018).
Conclusion
Vanguard was founded in 1997 and it operates acute care hospitals, health plans, and outpatient facilities within Texas, Arizona, Illinois, Michigan, and Massachusetts. The organization has over 36,800 employees it continues to expand its operations by acquiring more hospitals and other forms of care services in different regions in the US. The recruitment of skilled nursing staff and specialist physicians ensures high-quality care thus increasing patient satisfaction. Roger’s innovation diffusion theory can be successful in implementing the strategic plan.
References
Checkland, K., Coleman, A., Billings, J., Macinnes, J., Mikelyte, R., Laverty, L., & Allen, P. (2019). National evaluation of the Vanguard new care models programme: Interim report: understanding the national support programme. The University of Manchester Research.
Davis, S. F., Hinde, S., & Ariss, S. (2020). Complex programme evaluation of a ‘new care model’vanguard: a shared commitment to quality improvement in an integrated health and care context. BMJ Open, 10(3), e029174.
McCarthy, A., McMeekin, P., Haining, S., Bainbridge, L., Laing, C., & Gray, J. (2019). Rapid evaluation for health and social care innovations: challenges for “quick wins” using interrupted time series. BMC Health Services Research, 19(1), 964.
Mohammadi, M. M., Poursaberi, R., & Salahshoor, M. R. (2018). Evaluating the adoption of evidence-based practice using Rogers’s diffusion of innovation theory: a model testing study. Health promotion perspectives, 8(1), 25–32. https://doi.org/10.15171/hpp.2018.03.
Salmond, S. W., & Echevarria, M. (2017). Healthcare Transformation and Changing Roles for Nursing. Orthopedic nursing, 36(1), 12–25. https://doi.org/10.1097/NOR.0000000000000308.
Health Organization Evaluation Essay