Strategies to Improve Hospital Financial Performance:

As the CEO of the Middlefield hospital, I understand that the hospital has been encountering significant challenges in the last few months. The hospital is in need of improving its financial performance if it wants to remain operational and continue offering health services. In line with this¸, the following are the strategies and recommendations that the hospital should undertake to improve its financial performance.

            The first activity would be aligning the hospital clinicians, physicians and other care providers across the care system or continuum. It is of the essence to note in a medical setting quality services is a key determinant of the hospital capability to receive more patients.  Individuals who do not depend more on Medicaid or Medicare look for inequality services. Such person will be willing and able to spend for the health care provided to them as long as they can trust that quality services are being provided. To provide such services, the care providers in Middlefield hospital will need to work together; they will have to accommodate the concept of interdependency (Alexander, Weiner, & Griffith, 2006). The first step in this would be to call all the employees and have a meeting with them to learn the problems they are encountering in the course of their work.  Furthermore, the hospital management must mobilize and show their dedication in creating an environment where the employees work together or have cohesiveness. It is true that the hospital has adopted the health plan for employees, but the employees need to prove they deserve the incentive.

            The second strategy would be to take the evidence based practice to attain quality care and uphold patient safety. It is of the essence to note that although no patients are using the hospital for services that were provided to them, it does not mean that they are satisfied. For instance, the hospital has care contacts that have been in existence for more than two years. If properly investigated there are a significant number of patients who came to the hospital and never returned to seek further care or consultancy. Some of these patients can not recommend Middlefield hospital to their families or those close to them. However, to ensure that the hospital builds a decent reputation in the society it should properly adopt evidence- based practices (Sacks et al., 2015).  Furthermore, it should ensure that follow-up is done on the patients because their contacts are available. It is a suitable way of creating confidence with the society and the target patients. It is through such approach that the hospital will build a positive reputation in the community.

            The third strategy would be to create efficiency through financial and productivity management. One of the ways that the hospital will be able to ensure efficiency in finances is to establish a revenue integrity department. The staffs in the department will be obliged in a critical and extensive analysis of the hospital finances and their utilization. Similar to any organization that has not carried out such financial tracing activities there could be some loopholes that the money is lost. Thus, the department will be obligated in finding areas of waste or finances wastage. In other words, the hospital requires a thorough audit of its sources of revenue and the way in which it is spent. There may be the case of employees who are not productive to the hospital or employees having a small amount of job. The recommendations regarding the cutting of costs could only be properly established after setting up a department of committee obliged in that responsibility (McCann, Graves, & Cox, 2014).

            In lie with cutting the unnecessary hospital costs, I would recommend that the employee’s health plan be retained.  The reason to this is because the employees need to be motivated to continue working for the hospital and provide quality care services. It is noted that the first aspect that will ensure hospital finances improves is the quality of its services such that it will be able to attract people who are willing and able to pay more for care services. Ending the program could reduce the employee’s morale to work hard. However, a condition should be adopted such that performance assessment must be done on a continual basis. Employee productivity will be the key concern since attaining high-quality services will attract more customers who will on the other hand help cover the hospital operation costs including those for employee’s health plan.

            Similarly, the inpatient mental health services should be maintained. It is because the hospital purpose is it provides care to the society. Furthermore, for the hospital to forge good reputation among the potential customers, it has to show dedication in helping the people and signify that it has the interests of the society. The services could be identified as corporate social responsibility, and there is always an important aspect in attracting more customers. It is important to note that the current strategies are dedicated to ensuring the hospital is notable and people like it and its services. It should be in a position to attract more people.

            Lastly, to complement the noted strategies and recommendations it would be important to engage in advertisement and marketing of the hospital. Adopting activities aimed at branding the hospital such as through the social media, local TVs, use of printouts and campaigns by circulating in the city for two days would create a new sense among the people. Informing people about the hospital and its new course of action in providing quality and reliable services will influence them to try.  In the case, the hospital will have ensured that all the other strategies are to be implemented a new phase for the hospital will be created leading to a massive  flow of customers and this will consequently lead to improved financial performance.

References

Alexander, J. A., Weiner, B. J., & Griffith, J. (2006). Quality improvement and hospital financial performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27(7), 1003-1029. Retrieved  from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1022.2431&rep=rep1&type=pdf

McCann, J. T., Graves, D., & Cox, L. (2014). Servant leadership, employee satisfaction, and organizational performance in rural community hospitals. International Journal of Business and Management, 9(10), 28.

Sacks, G. D., Lawson, E. H., Dawes, A. J., Russell, M. M., Maggard-Gibbons, M., Zingmond, D. S., & Ko, C. Y. (2015). The relationship between hospital performance on a patient satisfaction survey and surgical quality. JAMA Surgery, 150(9), 858-864.