Question

Discuss the one of many challenges facing healthcare management in facility placement, layout, workforce scheduling and use of processes, methods and analytics to improve quality, efficiencies, competitiveness and profitability. And provide potential solutions to the challenge you chose.

Answer 1

The atmosphere of a healthcare department is very dynamic and critical. It is always possible for the healthcare staff and the healthcare management to face some kind of challenges in the management of staff and patients. These challenges disable the staff to have proper coordination, communication, technical upgrade, scheduling, and use of process, patient safety and healthcare profitability. The healthcare organization faces numerous challenges in facility placement, workforce scheduling and use of processes, layout, analytics and methods to improve quality, efficiencies, profitability and competitiveness. But, lack of technological advancement is the most challenging issue in the healthcare. It not only have a negative impact over the healthcare management and staff but it also impact the patient safety and wellbeing.

It is important for the healthcare professionals to incorporate proper technical advancement in the hospitals because it ensure proper facility placement. Facility placement is the process in which all the hospital equipments such as furniture heights, handrails, emergency equipments are placed properly according to the patients. Technologically advance setups can make the setup more patient friendly and safe so it is important for the healthcare organizations to have proper technological advancement for facility management. This can be done by automating the door openings for chronically ill patients, setting up emergency alarms for patients in ICU and having smart cameras for monitoring patients in their rooms.

Lack of technological has made it difficult for the healthcare management to follow proper workforce scheduling with use of proper processes. Electronic records can easily help the healthcare management to monitor the scheduling of the nurses. However, manual monitoring can sometimes become very burdensome. This can also lead to work overload and mismanagement. This challenge can be solved by proper follow up electronic records that can easily keep a check on the workforce scheduling and use of processes.

Proper technological support and advancement can definitely contribute to greater methods and analytics that can improve the profitability, quality, competitiveness and efficiency. However, many healthcare organizations do not focus on technological aspects of the healthcare department. Having proper internet connection and technical library for the healthcare staff can help them built proper knowledge that can in turn contribute to patient safety, competitiveness to do better. Moreover, teaching the patients about electronic health monitoring apps can help them monitor their own health which can be very effective and helpful for the patients as well as the nurses. This can ultimately lead to greater effectiveness and profitability.