Analysis of Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital - Paper Example

Introduction

Texas Health Arlington Memorial Hospital (AMH) is located on Randol Mill Road, Arlington, Texas. The hospital boasts of a capacity of 369 licensed beds. The increased capacity follows upgrades in the recent past to meet the needs of the patients more efficiently. AMH specializes in offering acute care and targets patients with chronic conditions around Arlington, Mansfield, Pantego, and Grand Prairie areas. It provides general medical and surgical services. The hospital enjoys close partnerships with communities around these areas to improve the quality of health outcomes (Texashealth, 2018). The organization on a licensed issued by the Texas Department of Health and has received accreditation from relevant federal regulatory bodies.

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Examination of the Organization

The hospital's mission is stated as to improve the health of the people it caters for in the communities while its philosophy is to alleviate human suffering through dedicated, compassionate care. Apart from the organizational leaders, the hospital has a board that advises on the policy of the organization and others relating to the overall direction of the hospital.

The organizational structure that is practiced at AMH is matrix reporting. A matrix organization structure entails management of multi-disciplinary teams. An organization that follows a matrix structure has several managers and competing goals, and these goals must be pursued while collaborating with everybody in the organization (Lukinaite & Sondaite, 2017). At AMH, nurses, physicians, information officers, and operation offers work jointly for a common goal of providing quality palliative care. For instance, if a team is going out for a community outreach program, it may not be necessarily managed and facilitated by the chief nurse. One may be required to report to finance, especially on issues related health care spending, or operations, resulting in a situation where a nurse reports to more than one boss depending on the duty they are carrying out.

Strengths and Limitations

Strengths

A major strength of the hospital is its close connection with the community in which it is located. Having close relations with the community has been an effective way of collaborating with families of patients with acute care needs. Family collaboration with medical officers is critical to offering high- quality (Dehghan Nayeri, Gholizadeh, Mohammadi, & Yazdi, 2013). This is because social support is an essential element in providing care for patients with acute ailments. The close connection also helps the hospital to implement preventive care programs in the community.

Another strength of the hospital is the use of matrix organizational structure. This structure enables effective communication as it allows multidisciplinary teams to come together to achieve a common. Specifically, it allows stakeholders to interact effectively and collaborate in the interest of the patients and the community as a whole. As Lukinaite and Sondaite (2017) note, in the modern era, hospital teams must closely work together for them to realize high-quality care standards expected of medical facilities today.

Strong leadership of the president, chief nursing officer, and chief medical officer offer the necessary leadership required for the organization to pursue its mandate. These leaders have spent considerable time at the organization which provides stability regarding its efforts towards its goals and objectives. As noted by Lunenburg (2011), an organization needs strong leadership for it to be optimal as well as effective in its operations.

Weaknesses/Limitations

Limited service line means that only patients with medical needs in the hospital's specialization are served. As indicated in the text, the hospital specializes in acute care. As such, it may not fulfill the medical needs of patients outside its area of specialization, yet it has a close connection with the community.

Funding for community-based activities is an inherent limitation for the organization. For instance, many preventive care programs, such as training for community members on how to prevent obesity, lack sustainable and scalable sources of funding. Many of these sources are not clear hence hinder effective running of community-based programs that seek to address determinants of health.

Capacity is also a limitation. Although the hospital has received an upgrade of its capacity in recent years, the fact that it serves a wide catchment area means that it would be overstretched. Given that the population of older Americans continues to rise, the hospital is expected to be further limited regarding its capacity to meet expanding demand for geriatric care.

Care Delivery System

Team nursing (TN) and total patient care (TPC) are the care delivery systems used at AMH.TPC relies on a group of nurses working as a team to deliver care to patients (King, Long, & Lisy, 2014). At AMH, nurses work as a team under the supervision of a registered nurse. The experience of working under this set-up is that nurses can share skills and expertise while working together as a team.

Total patient care is a common practice at the organization. Nurses are allocated to take care of given patients and are delegated by the chief nursing officer. The attention to the patients involves assisting them in daily living alongside offering them medical services.

Outcomes and Measurements

Outcomes refer to the change in the medical situation of a patient, a group of patients or populations following medical interventions (Birkhauer et al., 2017). Sustainability of benefits achieved for patients is a critical patient outcome in the organization. This outcome shows the quality of life a patient after accessing medical care. It is measured by noting the time it takes for the treated medical conditions to recur or readmissions take place.

Another outcome is reduced job burnout among nurses. This is meant to keep nurses in the right frame of mind to offer quality services to the patients. It is measured by assessing the extent of safety of care to patients as seen in the reduction of errors and mistakes during practice among nurses.

References

Birkhauer, J., Gaab, J., Kossowsky, J., Hasler, S., Krummenacher, P., Werner, C., & Gerger, H. (2017). Trust in the health care professional and health outcome: A meta-analysis. PLOS ONE, 12(2), e0170988. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0170988

Dehghan Nayeri, N., Gholizadeh, L., Mohammadi, E., & Yazdi, K. (2013). Family involvement in the care of hospitalized elderly patients. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 34(6), 779-796. doi:10.1177/0733464813483211

King, A., Long, L., & Lisy, K. (2014). Effectiveness of team nursing compared with total patient care on staff wellbeing when organizing nursing work in acute care ward settings: a systematic review protocol. JBI Database of Systematic Reviews and Implementation Reports, 12(1), 59-73. doi:10.11124/jbisrir-2014-1533

Lukinaite, E., & Sondaite, J. (2017). Mindset of employees working in a matrix organizational structure. Business: Theory and Practice, 18(1), 144-151. doi:10.3846/btp.2017.015

Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). Leadership versus management: A key distinction -at least in theory. International Journal of Management, Business, and Administration , 14(1), 1-4.

Texashealth. (2018). Leadership. Retrieved from https://www.texashealth.org/arlington/about-texas-health-arlington-memorial/leadership

Van den Oetelaar, W. F., Van Stel, H. F., Van Rhenen, W., Stellato, R. K., & Grolman, W. (2016). Balancing nurses' workload in hospital wards: study protocol of developing a method to manage workload. BMJ Open, 6(11), e012148. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012148