Steering Committee in Healthcare, Research Paper Example

By definition, a steering committee is a group or collection of highly qualified individuals whose sole aim is to steer or guide the organizational aspects of a project and its various resources. This type of committee has been part of the business world for many years and can be found in virtually all forms of business enterprises and/or organizations. Overall, when a steering committee has been properly organized and empowered with the responsibility to make critical decisions, its main purpose is to “guide the organization through one or more projects” with swift deliberation, a strategic direction, and with advocacy related to project initiatives. The success of any given steering committee “depends on (its) ability to execute governing responsibilities, while allowing the project manager” to accomplish his/her primary goals and the project team itself to perform efficiently (Time to Lead: Four Easy Steps to Steering Committee Success, 2015).

In a healthcare environment, steering committees serve a variety of purposes, such as for determining new hospital or clinical administrative regulations, or creating new and innovative hospital billing and laboratory information systems. In many instances, a steering committee is formed due to a specific need, such as developing and initiating an Internet Technology system that will allow hospital administrators and staff members to access the World Wide Web for information and data and to store and retrieve vital documents related to patient treatment, safety, and diagnostics.

A prime example is when a hospital is considering new investments in health information technology related to developing clinical information systems, one being electronic health records which requires that the steering committee for this project be composed of “representatives from all key stakeholder groups” that will be given the responsibility to determine how the committee will operate on a daily basis and which individuals should be involved in designing and planning the various aspects of the project (HIT Steering Committee, 2009, p. 1). Of course, depending on the type of project, the steering committee may need to be highly formalized with the ability to perform “strategic functions and to raise the level of authority” in order to make “tactical decisions and refer formal strategic recommendations directly to executive leadership” (HIT Steering Committee, 2009, p. 1).

The need for a steering committee in a hospital environment may also be related to the creation of what are known as domain teams or groups of individuals that specialize in a particular field of endeavor as clinicians. In many cases, these domain teams, such as one composed of clinicians that specialize in new types of medications, “help round out the steering committee as special needs are encountered” during the process of planning, acquiring, and implementing a new kind of medication system that would effectively lower medication errors and thus raise the safety level for patients (HIT Steering Committee, 2009, pp. 2-3).

A good example related to what is occurring in today’s modern hospitals and clinics is the full implementation of an electronic medication administration record (EMAR) system. Certainly, the need for this type of system continues to expand, due to the growing number of patients over the age of sixty and expansions in Medicare and Medicaid. In this instance, there would be a great need for qualified registered nurses, experienced pharmacists, and individuals with technical knowledge related to computer operating systems and software. Under the best of circumstances, these individuals would be part of the steering committee which might also include physicians from the local community and representatives from the retail pharmacy industry (HIT Steering Committee, 2009, pp. 2-3). Thus, the need for steering committees in a hospital environment depends upon the type of project that is being considered by hospital administrators and whether the need justifies the empowerment of the committee to make critical decisions that will affect the long-term future of the organization and its employees.

References

HIT steering committee. (2009). StratisHealth. Retrieved from www.stratishealth.org/documents/HITToolkitHospital/1.Adopt/1.2Plan/1.2HIT_Steering_Committee.doc

Time to lead: Four easy steps to steering committee success. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.ittoolkit.com/how-to-it/projects/project-steering-committees.html