Careers in Healthcare Management, Research Paper Example

Human Resource Management in Health care

In most healthcares across the globe, focus has been shifted mainly on the human resource management. Human resources in the healthcare can be deemed as different forms of non-clinical and clinical staffs, which have the mandate of individual and public health intervention. In the health care sector, human resource management is charged with the role of devising regulations and rules that govern the health workers. In such a task, the managers are required to liaise with the lawyers who handle the hospital legal issues. As seen in most hospitals, the role of human resource management include managing workers, placement and staffing, making decisions, conducting legal research, and ensuring proper healthcare safety among other responsibilities. In this research paper, the focus is on determining key role that human resource management plays in the health care field. Further, this study will evaluate various functions of human resource management in terms of their level of support to the health care field, and then select the ones that seem as the primary function in furthering the health care field. Finally, the research will analyze the role of human resource management in an organization’s strategic plan.

Key Roles That Human Resource Management Plays In the Health Care Field

The key roles that human resource management plays in the health care field include placement and staffing. The management in any healthcare ensures that the hospital is staffed with the right personnel. The human resource manager heads the management in a health facility. He or she conducts and organizes the appropriate candidates for positions available in the hospital. The management has the role of advising the hospital on the appropriate payments that should be given to health workers, and the right benefits they should get. The recruitment and advising the existing employees is the role of the human resource management in any health facility (Haddock & McLean, 2002).

The other role played by the human resource management in a hospital is managing the health workers. It would be difficult for any health facility to manage workers without the assistance of the human resource. Any facility of providing healthcare requires expertise of reliable and qualified health workers in order to ensure adequate and appropriate delivery of healthcare services (Haddock & McLean, 2002). The management also ensures any forms of complaints from patients are mitigated, besides preventing sanctions from the relevant authority. The management manages the existing workers in any healthcare facility. The management ensures the performance of both new recruits and existing employees are delivering quality services. The human resource has the major role of ensuring that any form of dispute emanating between workers is addressed appropriately. The management also goes ahead to produce a solution to an existing raw between workers.

The human resource management in any healthcare facility has the role of making concrete decisions affecting it. The management does the planning and arrives at sensitive and needful decisions in a healthcare facility. This role is vital because it allows the management to address any problems affecting the employees (Haddock & McLean, 2002). Thanks to the human resource management in the healthcare facility disputes are solved early, enough and many problems that might occur are addressed. The management is also charged with the responsibility of establishing a reliable and strong team of workers. It also devises strategies to govern workers, and this result into an organized system of healthcare. Considering that healthcare is delivered to people and by people, a strong management is needed in order to ensure health care programs are run efficiently.

In a healthcare facility, relations of employees go a long way in ensuring that employer-employee relationship is maintained. Notably, the relation of employees is wide and an intensive discipline since it involves benefits, salaries, employee development, training, and safety. The afore-mentioned sustain the program of workers in any given health facility. In the same vein, a reliable human resource management in any hospital ensures safety is given the first priority. Ensuring the working and environment where patients are staying is free from hazards in the role of the human resource (Haddock & McLean, 2002). The management has the role of putting up strategic development to ensure safety, and mitigate and manage potential losses in a healthcare facility. The management must address any forms of fatalities and injuries that might occur in the place of work. The management should work out a health insurance for all the employees and compensations in the event an employee is injured at the work place. The management can devise a method of reducing injuries through offering training and inductions of workers whenever a sophisticated machine is brought at the hospital.

Functions of Human Resource Management In Terms Of Their Level of Support to the Health Care Field

The human resource management has numerous personnel charged with the role of giving support to the healthcare field. One such personnel in the leader or the manager, considering that, leadership plays a major function of ensuring the delivery of quality health services (Haddock & McLean, 2002). A good leader in the healthcare must portray effectiveness and skills of management. Their contribution in the healthcare is determined by their vision, which should be communicated to other workers, to lay a strategy of achieving the same. They have the role of motivating employees in ensuring that they can mobilize resources to achieve the set goals and objectives of the healthcare facility. As seen, the major function of leadership in the healthcare is to ensure that the resources available are organized well in order to ensure the best results are achieved.

The Primary Function in Furthering the Health Care Field

The primary function of the healthcare facility leadership is in ensuring that the major functions of the healthcare workers are realized in order to broker proper health care services. Arguably, managers should ensure that the health care workers selected have the required skills of achieving the set targets. All the employees in the healthcare facility need to have an understanding of their roles, skills, and appropriate knowledge in terms of their purposes and tasks of the service deliver. In furthering the achievements of a health care facility, the manager should establish rules and regulations of all the workers ensure the supplies such as drugs are delivered in time, establish an effective financial system, and monitor and plan activities in the right way.

Human Resource Management in a Healthcare Strategic Plan

The role of human resource management in a healthcare strategic plan is vital because the strategic and broader aims should be developed for any healthcare facility. A strategic plan involves aligning employees’ practices and policies with the objectives that a hospital intends to achieve in the end. In this view, the human resource management becomes an integral part of the business plan in the healthcare, and the former organizes events in order to ft in the drawn plan. In the healthcare, the human resource plays a role in ensuring that it has factored in the demands of healthcare now, in order to forecast the needed workforce in the future required delivering to the patients (George & Haag-Heitman, 2011). Proper planning is another way of motivating and committing employees. It enables the management to know the number of workers needed within certain duration, and decides on whether to hire extra ones, or reduce the current number. While working on a strategic plan, the human resource must be careful while dealing with health care workers. The management may decide to go for reduction through attrition, or by use of severance programs, as opposed to adopting a layoff strategy or an abrupt implementation. Workers who have served in the healthcare for a longer period are likely to show a lot of experience. A strategy of restricting, minimizing the operation costs, improving quality, and ensuring provision of excellent services to the patient requires proper planning by the human resource. As a result, the health care facility maintains a reliable, well trained, and stable workforce that has the required skills, abilities, and knowledge, values and attitudes for serving in this industry.

In terms of compensation, the healthcare must include it in the strategic implementation. Whenever the management is intending to conduct a restructuring strategy, it is vital to analyze and evaluate new jobs in order to arrive at reasonable levels of compensation. The human resource management might deem it fit to broaden and minimize the number of pay grades in the event the structures in the healthcare facility are not up to standards. Compensation means that the facility will have to make expenses, and such a process requires proper monitoring in order to control costs. The management has to administer costs, in order to accommodate the periodic increases for retaining and attracting experienced and competent workers, while ensuring that the incurred expenditures are within the financial plan. The cost of compensation can prove difficult to control when factors such as leniency affect in the appraisal of performance. Appraisal performance may show effects of increased high pay in an organization. Lower productivity and quality can be seen in the event employees feel that, they are going to receive salary increment even when they have not delivered (Edwards, 2009). Managers should ensure that compensation does not vary in great lengths, with other healthcare facilities within their area code. In order to sustain and implement high quality strategy of workers, the workers who are offering excellent services to receive an attractive compensation. This will ensure they serve as role models and eventually, the rest will strive to improve in order to receive similar rewards.

In conclusion, managers in the healthcare have trouble while attempting to manage people and implement strategies of the business to remain competitive in the healthcare field. Implementing strategies of a business in order to ensure improved organizational outcomes requires proper management of the human resources. In the view of the above discussion, the components necessary to ensure smooth running of a healthcare facility has been explored. The managers should be very keen on discharging their mandates in implementing the strategic plan, while managing health workers to ensure the deliver quality services to the patients.

References

Edwards MT. (2009). Peer review: a new tool for quality improvement. The Physician Executive Journal of Medical Management; 35(5):54-59.

George, V. & Haag-Heitman, B. (2011). Nursing Peer Review: The Manager’s Role. Journal of Nursing Management, 19(2).

Haddock, C. C., & McLean, R. D. (2002). “Careers in Healthcare Management: How to Find your Path and Follow It.” Chicago: Health Administration Press.