Discussion: Organizational Development, Workforce Planning, and Succession Planning

Organizational development is focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of a workplace. As part of this process, strategic planning professionals often work with leadership teams to develop strategies for short-term and long-term organizational development, including workforce planning and succession planning. This helps ensure that health care organizations recruit, train, and retain employees that are capable of meeting strategic objectives. For this Discussion, examine the following scenarios and suggest strategies for organizational development, workforce planning, and succession planning.

Scenario 2: Whitesville Medical Center has been providing quality patient care in Louisiana for over 100 years. However, during the last five years, the organization has experienced significant turnover in middle management positions in the Housekeeping Department. In fact, the average tenure of a middle manager is only six months, and there is a current vacancy in the day and evening shifts. Because of the unstable management team, no one has been able to hold supervisors accountable for facilitating appropriate orientation of new staff, ongoing training of the seasoned employees, and routine audits of the employees’ performance. Unfortunately, the breakdown in management oversight has led to a lack of employee training in cleaning and sanitizing patient rooms, surgical suites, and public areas including the restrooms and waiting areas. The lack of cleanliness and sanitation has led to an outbreak of nosocomial infections impacting several patients and causing them to remain in the hospital for a longer period of time. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Joint Commission have received anonymous tips about this outbreak and have sent survey teams to conduct unannounced visits at the facility, which could lead to fines until the issue is fully resolved by the medical center.

To prepare:

• Review the scenario assigned to you by the Instructor.
• Consider strategies for short-term and long-term organizational planning, workforce planning, and/or succession planning.

Assignment 1: Accountable Care Organizations

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) play a key role in coordinating health care services for Medicare beneficiaries. These organizations have largely become consumer driven, making marketing and health care consumerism central to their success. By offering and marketing evidence-based, patient-centered services and initiatives, ACOs can better connect with consumers. For this Assignment, you examine the services and initiatives for an ACO in your state.

To prepare:

• Select an ACO from the website ACOs in Your State in this week’s Learning Resources.
• Identify evidence-based services/initiatives that the ACO is using.
  

  Note: To determine if services/initiatives are evidence-based, go to http://innovation.cms.gov/

• Consider the following:
  • Is the ACO using services/initiatives that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recognize and for which they offer reimbursements?
  • How does the ACO market these services/initiatives to increase health care consumerism?

The Assignment

In a matrix, analyze evidence-based services/initiatives that the ACO you selected is using for each of the following:

• Quality of care
• IT
• Marketing
• Financial outcomes
• Population health programs
• Vertical versus horizontal integration
• Operational excellence

Include whether the ACO is using approaches that CMS recognizes for reimbursements and how these initiatives/services increase health care consumerism.

Synthesize the information you have gathered from your analysis so that each bullet point clearly represents the most significant considerations within each category. While this is a 1-page document that might appear to be simple, each point must be the result of deep and critical thinking.