GlenMed is an acute care general hospital located in Scotston, a community of 35,000 in the Southwestern United States. Originally found in 1950 with 35 beds, the hospital grew tremendously to a capacity of 55 within three years and reached a capacity of 166 beds five years ago. The expansion of the hospital was due to an economic growth in the region along with a rapid influx of people. Three years ago, the board of directors concluded that major expansion of the hospital was necessary to adequately serve residents in the Scotston and Glengarry County.
Due to a rapid economic growth, new patients were experiencing long waits and office hallways had become overflow storage space. GlenMed would expand from a 166 to a 248 bed at an estimated cost of $75 million. Like all public hospitals, GlennMed is governed by a seven-member board and faced ongoing pressure from various groups, including civic political leaders, patients and their families, medical professionals, and medical staff members. The hospital has faced a high turnover ratio with chief executives.
Over the past decade, four chief executives have led the hospital three of whom have been within the past five years. While searching for the new CEO, the board appointed Donald Dale as acting after serving as second in command under the previous CEO. Key Issues New patients experiencing long waits until beds become available is one of the issues brought up in this case. Due to lack of storage space, the hospital has resulted in using the offices and hallways as storage spaces. This is definitely not tolerated and GlennMed is at a risk of losing its license.
Arnold Benson, the newly appointed CEO of Glengarry Regional Medical hospital is one of the contributors to the issues that the hospital is facing. Despite his good intentions and directing the hospital to a good direction, his approach is much to be desired. His dismissing and dissolving the advisory group was not a good move on his part. In making the decision on what weekend the retreat would be held for the department heads, it was a good idea but could have used a second opinion instead of just deciding on his own. The valentine’s weekend was definitely a wrong weekend to hold the retreat.
Had the advisory committee still been in existence, they could have advised him on this decision. The lack of management training exposure by the department heads is a big issue that needs to be addressed. Everybody at some point and time in their employment receives some type of training as to how things are done in the company (Lewis, 2011). It is therefore critical that department heads at GlennMed receives training to help improve performance. Problem The biggest problem in this case is the expansion of the hospital as Arnold Benson states in the case.
The fact that the hospital is receiving so many patients in the area due to the rapid expansion of the city, a lot more beds are needed to accommodate the new patients. The expansion of the hospital called for a financial concern due to the fact that the hospital didn’t have the funds available. To make matters worse, the employees were also promised a 7% pay increase before Benson’s arrival and were anticipating this pay increase. Benson finally got approval of the much needed finances from the local banking community but on the condition that the employees would have to pay for parking.
Instead of letting the employees know about this new development, the CEO decided to wait on informing them. This is a big problem and it didn’t need to wait to be tackled or informing the employees. Benson needed a brainstorming session or other ideas on how this could be handled and there is no other group that he could have discussed it with and got some ideas from other than the dissolved advisory group. Alternative solutions It is very clear that Benson didn’t do a good job of communicating with the rest of the team about the paid parking. He postponed the announcement of the news to a later time instead.
He had an idea and knew how the employees would react upon hearing of this change in parking and especially after a reduction in their pay increase, a negative response was very likely to be experienced and that’s why Benson decided to postpone it. Benson needed to tackle this issue instead of postponing it. He could have consulted with the advisory team and got some ideas from them on how to go about it and what other options there was or could have been brought up. The advisory team could have been regrouped or rather reintroduced by way of calling up an adhoc meeting.
By him not showing involving the team, he passes on an opportunity to find resolution The alternative solutions to these problems are; 1. Reintroduce the advisory team and deal with issues as they arise unlike having to postpone them. This will give the CEO an opportunity to get ideas from the other employees in the team through brainstorming. 2. Instead of going ahead to schedule the retreat on the valentine’s weekend, Benson should have re-evaluated the date by way of getting a second opinion which could have not been from the advisory team but from Dr. Chandry. 3. Benson needs to introduce the path-goal leadership. This type of leadership is suitable to this group since Benson is talking about increased productivity once the employees get the promised pay increase. Path-goal theory states that effective leaders ensure that employees who perform their jobs well receive more valued rewards than those who perform poorly. Effective leaders also provide the information, support and other resources necessary to help employees complete their tasks. (Spears & Lawrence, 2002).
Therefore there is a need to implement this strategy. Selected solution As much as there is more than one solution to the problem in this case, the best solution is to reintroduce the advisory committee. It is crucial that the CEO puts a strong advisory committee. The committee will help with the much needed help in helping implement the changes. Since Benson is new to the organization, it will be helpful that he has the team in place so that they can help with making these decisions.
Implementation/Recommendation. The following recommendations should be applied and put in place; •A model should be constructed and put in place which would allow team members to work effectively and constructively with each other so that they can make the most of their individual abilities. Various project management maturity models are available which can help an organization to judge its own level of maturity and whether it needs to move to a higher level in order to manage its projects more efficiently (Row, 2011). •Interpersonal relationships should be encouraged between team members and their immediate superiors.
Interpersonal relations at work (and away, too) serve a critical role in the development and maintenance of trust and positive feelings in an organization (Billikopf, 2006). Although the quality of interpersonal relationships alone is not enough to produce worker productivity, it can significantly contribute to it. •Communication is very critical in an organization and should be practiced. It needs to start with managers and should be followed suit by the rest of the employees Communication procedure needs to be therefore followed and put in place. Since Benson seems to be big on result-based incentives, the path-goal should be put in place. Spending a few thousand dollars to fix a six-figure problem is the best return on investment you’ll find anywhere (Hirsch & Gandolf, 2010). Therefore if the employees are going to get a pay raise, they might as well work a little harder for their money.
References
Billikopf, G. (2006, August 11). The Regents of the University of California . Retrieved February 6, 2011, from Berkeley. edu Web site: http://www. cnr. berkeley. edu/ucce50/ag-labor/7labor/12. htm Hirsch, L. , & Gandolf, S. (2010, May 8). Healthcare Success Strategies. Retrieved February 6, 2011, from Healthcare Success Strategies Web site: http://www. healthcaresuccess. com/articles/patient-retention. html Lewis, N. (2011, Fubruary 2). EzineArticles Inc. Retrieved February 6, 2011, from EzineArticles. com Web site: http://ezinearticles. com/? How-the-Lack-of-Training-Could-Cost-Your-Company-Thousands&id=5845343 Row, J. R. (2011, January 28). Bright Hub Inc. Retrieved February 6, 2011, from Bright Hub Web site: http://www. brighthub. com/office/project-management/articles/69161. aspx#ixzz1CXflILEA Spears, L. C. & Lawrence, M “Various thoughts on servant leadership,” (2002)
