Improving Group Productivity

Introduction

Healthcare centers or a hospital are places where one seeks medical help with the expectation of receiving treatment and care. Hospitals are institutions or organizations that play a very critical role in any community because at one point in our lives we all have to visit a hospital. According to the New Approaches Needed to Solve Hospitals’ Productivity Woes, “According to preliminary data to appear in a forthcoming Monthly Labor Review article, hospital productivity fell 0.2% a year between 2001 and 2010. Over nearly two decades, the output derived from the cost of labor and capital poured into healthcare—the classic measure of productivity —rose at a paltry 0.7% average annual rate.” (Goozner, M. 2015). In any medical center organization, the staff like the physicians, technicians, pharmacist, nurse aids and nurses need to have good communication among themselves and with their clients to ensure that the patients receive the best services and care. In case a ball drops anywhere in the course of passing vital information the serious repercussions are likely to come up.

Group productivity in any organization may mean to be the difference between the interconnected work and extremely productive and when an organization starts to fall due to unmotivated staff who do not feel like going to work thus tainted productivity (Lindlof, & Taylor, 2017). Therefore, as a hired consultant of a private health institution, Maria Parham Medical Center which is located in North Carolina at Henderson, I have done some research on the medical organization on the productivity of the institution and the factors that influence that productivity. The recommendations to improve the group productivity of the organization will also come from me. Several things have been observed in Maria Parham Medical Center at Henderson in North Carolina that will be addressed in this paper that I observe as a consultant of that organization.  These things include; communication problems that are existent in most organizations among group members and the role of conflict that is also funded in most groups (Kurtz, Draper, & Silverman, 2017).

Other problems that will be discussed and were observed in this medical center is the lack of cohesiveness among diverse members of a group in this organization and extreme intergroup conflict. Moreover, there will explain how the group’s productivity is affected by each of the problems that will be mentioned. Finally, there will be suggestions offered that will give good practice to enhance group productivity, and they will be based on dynamics of a group and creation of a wide company training program (losh, 2011).

Problems of Productivity Impact

The section of productivity impact involves the problem that affects group’s productivity and the examples that will explain further those problems. First is the role of conflict in Maria Parham Medical Center and most hospitals can create disqualified individuals who not have the ability to form a basis on the goals and tasks in their departments. In this medical center, this problem of the role of conflict has enormously impacted on the productivity of the whole organization since it does not allow efficient working of different departments. For instance, if a single department with certain individuals is not capable of determining the roles in the hospital then they cannot facilitate the other departments unless coming to an understanding that each department plays.

Apparently, all department in a health center or organization should learn how to work in unity for their good, the good of the organization and for the patients who will come in seeking treatment. There is no single department that can facilitate full treatments required by a patient unless with the help of another department (Sherif, 2015). Thus every department and its roles must be there to serve each patient with an understanding of the roles of everyone to eliminate role conflict. For example in Maria Parham Medical Center the pharmacy department always have a conflict with the physicians on the issue of drugs subscriptions where the doctor do not want to prescribe all the drugs and expects the pharmacists to know the missing drugs on the prescriptions and prescribe them by themselves. The patient may end up going home without some drugs since the pharmacists know that the physician should have given full prescriptions (losh, 2011).

Communication is another problem on the premises of a hospital thus causing detrimental impacts on the productivity of the facility or organization as well as the treatment of a patient. Communication problems can not only cause group conflicts but also it has effects on the patients’ outcome. For instance, if one department does not give information to the other department about a certain patient’s sickness or urgency of the treatment it can later cause liability and even maybe a lawsuit (Kurtz, Draper, & Silverman, 2017). That may even occur in one department but during a hand-off and the right communication about the patient is not passed to the person on duty. Also, for those individuals who feel that their management department or leaders are not approachable, that forms a communication problem in that organization. That leads to an ultimate dramatic impact on productivity that mostly the hospital never make it recover from them (losh, 2011). In case a hospital is much known to have communication problems then the repercussions impact not only productivity but also the patients’ lives.

Lack of cohesiveness is the third problem in a hospital and has an impact on productivity through isolation of individuals between different departments or within their respective departments. Departments have the incapability of working together due to lack of cohesiveness since there is no sharing of tasks. Thus, individuals in those departments cannot form strong bonds can lead to trust and respect (Ojo et al, 2016). For instance, there can be a scarcity of resources through hoarding of the departments or via certain specific department’s allocation. That is enough to cause tremendous effects on impact productivity. Another instance that was observed in Maria Parham Medical Center is when a patient needs specific tests and is required to visit several departments, and the patient ends up feeling lost and annoyed due to inefficiency while addressing his problems which is caused by lack of cohesiveness among members in the facility. Later the patient may spend the whole day in the hospital causing inefficiency of the care that the patient gets. Such a case can cause an enormous impact on productivity in an organization which will also affect the customer feedback and can later cause problems of communication within the hospital. Another example as observed in Maria Parham Medical Center, some departments exist like they grudge on each other and are not willing to work with each other thus cannot even communicate. That has resulted in poor outcome after patients’ treatment due to lack of cohesiveness between the pharmacy department and the physicians.

Excessive intergroup conflicts are the fourth problem observed in Maria Parham Medical Center has always emerged from the role conflicts problem, lack of cohesiveness and communication problems from the cultural diversity. That always occurs across different groups in an organization or a hospital, for example, can be inadequate due resources within departments or between different departments (Sherif, 2015).  With all the above problems being present in a hospital, excessive intergroup conflict have to be there. However, the conflicts tend to come up due to the straying of the staff from the set goals of the organization or in a hospital like in my case.

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Role of conflicts

The role of conflicts within the group or without the groups often occur where identity is lost and that often occurs within a group in the main stage of development. Such a stage comes just after a group is formed and conflict and confrontation come up (Sherif, 2015). During this phase from my observation in Maria, Parham Medical Center is that every member comes up with personal ideas on which roles everyone in the group should play. For example that has occurred in Maria Parham hospital that is when the different departments in that facility are not working together in efficiency thus cannot efficiently merge the processes across the various departments so that they ensure that there is productivity improvement in the facility.

To solve such a problem, would suggest that one has first to determine how the staff in a group inhibits productivity of a group. That can be well done by first determining whether the departments in the organization or such a hospital are considered to be aggregate, groups or cohorts. That will help the management create a strategic plan that will be used in the creation of cohesiveness across all the departments, and that will, in turn, solve the problem of role conflict (Sherif, 2015). From my view is that as the head of an organization or as a chief executive officer of any facility like Maria Parham Medical Center one must ensure that there are thorough investigations done of things that could be happening among the staff so that in case of a problem like role conflict, it can be solved for the better of the organization as well as the patients visiting it seeking for medical help.

Cohesiveness

There is lack of cohesiveness in almost all hospitals that I have come across that is in most groups that are comprised of diverse members. That is displayed when different departments do not communicate with each other since they are not united and have no feeling of working with each other. Therefore, to ensure cohesiveness in any hospital, the president of the facility must create committee comprising of members of every department. With that he or she will be addressed on the flaws of productivity and all deficiencies in the facility. To improve the advocacy of each department and the role it has in working together, the committee will utilize the group surveys and communication to achieve that (losh, 2011).

The chosen committee should determine the tasks that each department can share and how one group or department can ease the problems and deficiencies of another group or department (Ojo et al,,. 2016). Still, the committee can use the department of human resource to expedite and internalize the protocols and procedures that will merge the different groups in each department as they cultivate committee procedures and guidelines. That can be well achieved through feedback and training intervention where the feedback is implemented through the creation of surveys.

Communication Problems

The problems of communication are well displayed in Maria Parham Medical Center through the lack of unison in the department. Thus to solve the problem of communication in such a hospital or any organization is done by the chosen committee with the aid from the human resource management department where they should ensure that every member within the group can talk and be considered (Kurtz, Draper, & Silverman, 2017). The committee too must be approachable and must give feedback to allow individual’s personal growth for each member from each department. All that is possible although can be made easy through the implementation of surveys that can binge ideas and communication across departments from people and also the creation of sub-committees in the groups to ensure communication is spread evenly to every individual in the health facility.  Committee will have some elected leaders that will take information from the other members of the group. The leaders will act as an echelon of every department in ensuring that communication is consistent an open and all the guidelines and protocols are observed. The surveys should be done to allow improvement of communication through allowing the individuals to give their voice opinions and share their ideas and feelings on any issue that may arise. The surveys should carry the important weight together with the committee to bring about changes. That will ensure an effect from the observer which is referred as Hawthorne effect where the observer effect will cause a reaction among the departments. That will make individuals in a department to improve their behavioral aspects in the response of their observation, and thus that will influence the results of committee implementation and surveys (Kurtz, Draper, & Silverman, 2017). 

The surveys should not be taken lightly by the members of a committee since the committee must have the control in making changes according to the survey as long as those changes cause positive alterations to productivity. Thus when such massive changes are made in any organization, the means of communication can be done through memos so that people may know why the changes were made. That is very efficient as it enhances communication across different groups and departments and helps in determination of the pros and cons of the process of communication. The type of reaction that is brought about by the feedback and that is required for postulation of Hawthorne effect (Kurtz, Draper, & Silverman, 2017). The process that is undertaken to take shape positively must appeal to the conformity principle as they ensure that compliance of the policies of the hospital stays intact as the modification and improvement of individuals behavior in the hospital.

Excessive Intergroup conflict

Having faced all the other problems in a hospital or health facility, it is never easy to escape the combination of them all which is intergroup conflict (Sherif, 2015). Therefore the solution for this problem is through identification of the problem either the management alone or through a selected committee or leaders from the same committee. The president of Maria Parham Medical Center should first ensure that all the other problems of communication, role conflict and lack of cohesiveness are solved and ensure all the required resources in each department or group are available to minimize the excess conflicts.

Suggestions

In any group, cohesion is vital as it yields much no matter the diversity of the members. Communication is critical in every group as it enhances cohesiveness among the different individuals and in various departments thus impacting productivity to the positive (Levi, 2015). As a consultant of a health facility, I find there is need to train staff before working with them and ensure that they understand the goals set for the organization so that as they work, they work towards its accomplishment. 

Conclusion

The staff and patients of a health care organization or facility are regarded as the most important in the facility. The staff are the significant assets in an institution and thus must be handled with care, and any problem existing among them has to be checked and solved to maintain the group productivity. Moreover, the goals and mission of a health organization have to be maintained and followed for the better of the whole organization, and the clients they deal with like in our case the patient’s care has to be the best, and the outcome after treatment has to be the best. Again, everyone in the organization like in a hospital must accept their roles of responsibilities to avoid role conflict that may even cost the organization or facility to death (Levi, 2015). All the problems observed in an organization affect the group’s productivity, but they all have solutions if the management is well organized in monitoring their staff and the services offered to their patients. That would help them impact productivity positively.

References

Goozner, M. (2015). New Approaches Needed to Solve Hospitals’ Productivity Woes.

Kurtz, S., Draper, J., & Silverman, J. (2017). Teaching and learning communication skills in medicine. CRC press.

Levi, D. (2015). Group dynamics for teams. Sage Publications.

Lindlof, T. R., & Taylor, B. C. (2017). Qualitative communication research methods. Sage publications.

Losh, S. (2011). Group behavior in organizations. San Diego: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.

Ojo, A., Winnie, D., Molina, A., Tolliver, D., & Cantu, C. (2016). An Evaluation of Cohesiveness and Conflicts in the Workplace. Conflict Resolution & Negotiation Journal, 2016(3).

Sherif, M. (2015). Group conflict and co-operation: Their social psychology (Vol. 29). Psychology Press.