Human Resource Management and Success of a Health Care Organization, Essay Example

Human resource management has been defined as the planned and logical approach to the management of an organization’s employees who in their individual and collective capacity contribute to the overall achievement of the organization’s goals and objectives. Appropriate management of human resources, which is the most important part of any organization, is key in producing effective outcomes.  This becomes more important in healthcare organizations as far as providing high quality care is concerned.

Good HR strategies greatly contribute towards achievement of better outcomes in access to health care. Healthcare organizations are very complex as a result of the convergence of professionals like physicians, nurses and administrators and other stakeholders, in this case the patients and government(). HR departments in these organizations have to content with a large and diverse workforce comprising of varied occupations.

These groups more often than not have conflicting interests and viewpoints and hence it is crucial that appropriate HR strategies are put in place to address each of these groups. HR professionals in the health sector encounter many challenges in their quest to provide high quality care. These include low budgets, high turnover of staff, absenteeism and government legislation.

Healthcare organizations require highly trained and skilled personnel.  Therefore, workforce training is a very important HR aspect in these organizations. Ensuring that there is appropriate education and in-service trainings for staff will sufficiently prepare them to meet a country’s current and future healthcare needs. Success of a health organization can also be measured by the way that organization retains its people.  Many organizations especially in developing countries are doing badly because of high staff mobility. Although these countries have very qualified healthcare practitioners, majority of them are poorly paid and less motivated hence dissatisfactions, leading to migrations to other places with better opportunities.

Appropriate HR strategies should therefore focus on giving better incentives like salary, housing and further training opportunities so as to retain these skilled employees and hence ensure success of the organization. Besides, proper performance management of staff ensures that they are held accountable and are also rewarded appropriately, as individuals or collectively as team members.  Therefore, constant feedback and coaching of employees will ensure that they do their work in an effective and timely manner and hence contribute to the success of an organization.

Work Cited

Anson, Brian R: “Taking charge in a volatile health care marketplace” Human Resource Planning 2003, 23(4):21-34.