Mental Health Association in California, Essay Example

How leaders view and perceive their organizations largely predetermines the quality of their decisions. More often than not, a machine metaphor is used to describe the basic organizational paradigms and show that an organization is effective only to the extent, which makes effective the sum of its parts (Cohn & Hough 1). The information provided in this memo letter is vital for the success of our future cooperation and the efficiency of the future management decisions. This memo will cover the location and participation of our organization in healthcare associations, the issues of decentralization, and the organization’s functionality in the context of electronic systems and solutions.

Our healthcare organization is located in California and deals primarily with mental health patients and issues. The organization is a member of California Coalition for Mental Health, which is made of 32 other organizations and supports its members as they seek to provide high-quality mental health services (CCMH). Throughout its history, our organization sought to promote a vision of effective mental health care, which exemplifies synergy of scientific approach to medical service, autonomy, confidentiality, equity, and ethics in dealing with each client. More often than not, we succeeded in overcoming the most serious barriers in our way to providing high-quality care.

Decentralization was always one of the definitive features of the organization’s performance. Initially, decentralization reflected our organization’s progression to better performance efficiency. Large size creates large problems (Finkler& Ward 669), and decentralization had to let our managers work within the limits of their physical capacity and avoid overloads. All decentralization decisions rested on the confidence top managers had in senior and middle managers and the quality of delegation decisions in different departments (Finkler& Ward 670). In addition, the organization always pursued the principles of process-based design, which means that all operations are organized around core organizational processes. Unfortunately, the past years were marked with the growing number of decentralization controversies, which led our managers to believe that decentralization was hardly the best form of managing the organization. Conflicting goals and the lack of effective reporting systems in place contributed to management difficulties. Our managers believe that the absence of effective communication ties and the lack of accountability are the two most significant issues top managers must address. Obviously, “though lower managers make decisions, top management wants to be informed of what is happening in the organization” (Finkler& Ward671). We expect that these issues will become the organization’s strategic priority.

The general functionality of our organization is usually defined in terms of the relationship between the technical and human management systems, and the quality of healthcare services we offer to our clients. Actually, the use of electronic systems has already become the vital element of our organizational success. We always believed in the reliability and usefulness of electronic healthcare systems and their positive influence on the quality measures within our organization. However, recent research has proved EHR systems to be a binary factor of organizational performance in healthcare (Poon et al 204). For this reason, we begin to cast doubts on the electronic systems’ potential to maximize healthcare efficiency, utility, and quality. We anticipate that the new management will pay particular attention to how electronic management systems operate in our organization, and why they do not produce significantly positive effects on our organizational functionality.

In summary, the organization operates in accordance with high-quality, equity, ethics, autonomy, and confidentiality principles. Decentralization, which had to reflect the organization’s progression to better efficiency of operations, is associated with serious accountability and communication issues. The organization’s functionality is defined in terms of the electronic systems use which, obviously, does not meet the organization’s quality expectations. As the author of this memorandum, I am willing to answer your questions or provide more detailed information on any issue you deem essential for the future of our organization.

Works Cited

CCMH. “California Coalition for Mental Health.”Mental Health Association in California, 2010. Web. 10 October 2010.

Cohn, K.H. & Hough, D.E. The Business of Healthcare: Leading Healthcare Organizations. Greenwood Publishing, 2008.

Finkler, S.A. & Ward, D.M.Cost Accounting for Health Care Organizations: Concepts and Applications. Jones & Bartlett Learning, 1999.

Poon, E.G., Wright, A., Simon, S.R., Jenter, C.A., Kaushal, R., Cleary, P.D. & Singer, J.A. “Relationship between use of electronic health record features and health care quality: Results of a statewide survey.”Medical Care, 48.3 (2010): 203-209.