Healthcare services management Flashcards
Who pioneered the theory of scientific management?
Frederick Winslow Taylor
How was Taylor’s theory of management different than previous ones?
He believed that instead of scolding employees for mistakes, employers should reward workers for increased productivity
What are the general principles of scientific management theory?
- Using scientific methods to determine and standardize the best way of doing a job
- A clear division of tasks and responsibilities
- High pay for high-performing employees
- A hierarchy of authority and strict surveillance of employees
What does the principle “science, not rule of thumb” mean in scientific management?
- Decisions taken by managers as per their personal judgement should be avoided
- There is only one best method of performing a task, which can be ascertained by logic, not by trial and error
What does “harmony, not discord” mean in scientific management?
- There should be complete harmony between the management and workers and both should feel that they are part of the same family
- Taylor referred to this as a “mental revolution” in the workforce
What does “cooperation, not individualism” mean in scientific management?
- All the activities performed by different people must be carried out with a spirit of mutual cooperation
- Managers and workers should jointly determine standards
- This increases the sense of responsibility
In scientific management, how are personal efficiency and prosperity developed?
- Development of workers through training
- Assigning workers to the task that they are best suited for
What are the 4 specific principles of scientific management?
- Science, not rule of thumb
- Harmony, not discord
- Cooperation, not individualism
- Development of personal efficiency and prosperity
Define
Management
- The process of directing, coordinating, and influencing the operations of an organization to obtain desired results and enhance total performance
- The art of getting things done by and through people
What are managers continually challenged to motivate workers to do?
- Motivating employees to work towards achieving the organization’s goals
- Motivating employees to work towards achieving their personal goals
Why is motivation especially difficult in the health sector?
The workers in healthcare run the wide spectrum of training and skill
Define
Engagement
The active agreement to do something for someone
Define
Motivation
The will or inclination to do something for someone
What are the results of engaged healthcare employees?
- Higher productivity
- Greater focus on patient treatment and care
- Higher safety
- Greater loyalty to employers
What are the negative impacts of disengaged employees?
- Bring morale down
- Impact negatively on the organization’s bottom line
What are the types of rewards?
- Intrinsic/internal
- Extrinsic/external
Define
Intrinsic rewards
Rewards derived from within the individual, e.g. the pride and good feeling of doing a job well
Define
Extrinsic rewards
Rewards derived from a different person, e.g. salary
Who motivates employees?
- Ultimately, the individual themselves
- Managers can provide incentives and extrinsic rewards to influence the employee’s motivation
Why is motivation important to healthcare organizations, specifically?
- Healthcare organizations face external and internal pressures that the employees must be able to withstand
- Healthcare employees are constantly being asked to increase their responsibilities with fewer resources, so they must be motivated to continue their work
What are the internal pressures healthcare organizations face?
- Shortage of certain types of workers
- Increased accreditation requirements
- Limited resources
- Increased responsibility to provide quality care and ensure patient safety
What are the external pressures healthcare organizations face?
- Aging population
- Economic downturns
- Increase in market competition
- Increase in the cost of providing care
- Healthcare reform
Why is motivation important?
- People spend about a third of their lives at work, so the workplace is an important aspect of a person’s identity
- When self-esteem is reduced, stress occurs, morale diminishes, illness prevails, and absenteeism increases
- Employees who are motivated feel invested in the organization, are happier, work harder, are more productive, and stay longer in the business
- Managers who understand their employees’ job-related needs see higher motivation in these employees
- A motivated and engaged workforce experiences better outcomes and provides the organization with a competitive advantage
What was the first historical instance of the realization of motivation?
In ancient Athens, political and economic power was related to the citizens’ right to be active in civic governance
Who was the first person in recent history to identify the importance of motivation?
William James (1890), who identified aspects of motivation and its relationship with intrinsically motivated behavior
Who pioneered the drive theory of motivation?
Clark Hull (1943)
What are the drives included in the drive theory of motivation?
- Hunger
- Thirst
- Sex
- Avoidance of pain
What are the three factors that motivation theories address?
- Employee needs of various types
- Extrinsic factors
- Intrinsic factors
What are the levels of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (from base to apex)?
- Physiological needs: food, water, sexual drive, and other essential needs for survival
- Safety needs: shelter, safe home and work environments, employment, healthcare, money
- Belonging needs: the desire for social contact and interaction, friendship, affection, support
- Esteem needs: status, recognition, positive regard
- Self-actualization: achievment, personal growth and development, autonomy
What did Maslow call the transition from one level of needs to the next?
Satisfaction progression
Who pioneered the ERG theory of motivation?
Alderfer (1972)
What are the components of the ERG theory of motivation (from lowest to highest)?
- Existence
- Relatedness
- Growth
How do the components of the ERG theory of motivation relate to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs?
- Existence combines Maslow’s physiological and safety needs
- Relatedness addresses Maslow’s belonging needs
- Growth combines Maslow’s esteem and self-actualization needs
What is the term Alderfer coined to describe individuals’ movements in and out of the ERG levels?
Frustration–regression principle
Define
Frustration–regression principle
Individuals move in and out of the levels of the ERG theory of motivation depending on the extent to which their needs are being met
What are the two factor’s of Herzberg’s theory of motivation?
- Hygienes: lower-level motivators, e.g. company policy and administration, interpersonal relationships, working conditions, salary, status, and security (job context)
- Motivators: higher-level factors focused on aspects of work such as achievement, recognition of achievement, the work itself, responsibility, and growth or advancement (job content)
Which part of Herzberg’s hygiene–motivator theory is the job context?
Hygienes
Which part of Herzberg’s hygiene–motivator theory is the job content?
Motivators
What are the principles of Herzberg’s hygiene–motivator theory?
- Addressing hygienes will not motivate employees but will keep them from being demotivated
- Addressing the motivator factors once the hygienes are met will motivate employees
What are the elements of McClelland’s acquired needs theory?
- Need for achievement: emphasizes the desire for success, mastering tasks, and attaining goals
- Need for affiliation: focuses on the desire for relationships and associations with others
- Need for power: relates to the desires for responsibility for, control of, and authority over others
What is the definition of needs, according to McClelland’s acquired needs theory?
Needs are acquired throughout life—they are not innate, but are learned or developed as a result of one’s life experiences
What type of motivation theory is reinforcement theory?
Extrinsic factor theory
Who pioneered the reinforcement theory of motivation?
B. F. Skinner
What are the elements of reinforcement theory?
- Positive reinforcement: adding positive consequences in response to positive behavior
- Negative reinforcement: removal of negative consequences in response to positive behavior
- Punishment: adding negative consequences in response to negative behavior in order to prevent its recurrence
- Extinction: removal of positive consequences in response to negative behavior
What are the intrinsic factor theories of motivation?
- Adams equity theory
- Vroom’s expectancy theory
- Locke’s goal-setting theory
What is Adams equity theory?
Individuals are motivated when they perceive that they are being treated equitably compared to others
What is Vroom’s expectancy theory?
Individuals are motivated by performance and the expected outcomes of their own behavior
What is Locke’s goal-setting theory?
Individuals are motivated to achieve goals set by the organization
What are examples of extrinsic rewards?
- Money (pay, bonuses, stock shares)
- Benefits (e.g. health/dental/vision insurance, vacation days, sick leave, retirement accounts)
- Flexible schedules
- Job responsibilities and duties
- Promotions
- Changes in status (by changes in the job title or a new and different set of responsibilities)
- Supervision of others
- Praise and feedback
What are examples of intrinsic rewards?
- Healthy relationships
- Meaningful work
- Competence and developing skills
- Choice (participation in decision making)
- Progress (accountability towards achieving growth)
What are the main misconceptions surrounding motivation?
- Extrinsic factors alone or intrinsic factors alone matter
- Motivation can be achieved by money alone
- Some employees are not motivated at all
- One motivational strategy suits all employees
Which study found that money and benefits are not the most important motivating factors?
Hay Group study
What are examples of motivational strategies?
- Set good expectations
- Communicate and address the bigger picture
- Reward desired behavior
- Use celebrations to communicate the importance of meeting goals
- Reward employees in ways that enhance performance and motivate them
- Focus on revitalizing employees, especially after highly stressful situations
- Play to the employees’ strengths, promote high performance, and focus on how they learn
- Find creative ways to obtain information and recognize excellence in employees
- Focus on collaboration rather than competition
- Give employees three compliments for every criticism
- Acknowledge the importance of work–life blaance and employee well being
Define
Strategic planning
The process of identifying a desired future state for the organization and the systematic, organized means of achieving it
What is the purpose and importance of strategic planning?
- There are always market forces, controllable and uncontrollable, that influence the success of the organization—strategic planning finds ways of adapting to them
- Strategic planning serves to focus the organization and guide allocation of its resources
What are the reasons why healthcare organizations should use strategic planning?
- Clients of these organizations are becoming increasingly informed, demanding, and non-loyal with the capacity of choosing the organization they like best
- Competitors are becoming increasingly professional and skilled
- it is increasingly easy to find highly qualified trained professionals outside the major healthcare centers of big cities
- the high level of specialization and skill among these professionals is increasingly widespread
- Limited resources for production, so rational resource allocation is very important
- Focus is shifting from being on the product or service provided to being on the client, client satisfaction, and obtaining the best results (what matters is not only what, but how)
- Size and complexity of these organizations due to the increases in population size, needs, diagnostic and treatment options, and range of diseases
What are the main activities under strategic planning?
- Development of the strategic plan
- Execution of the organization’s strategy
What is the timeframe of strategic plan development?
They often follow a multiyear time horizon (e.g. 3, 5, 10 years) and are updated annualy
What is the timeframe for strategy execution?
Execution is a constant process and ideally provides continual feedback for the development of future plans
What are the functions of SWOT analysis?
- Gather a snapshot of how the organization currently interacts with the market according to its internal strengths and weaknesses
- Identifying market opportunities and threats that the business must address in the future
What are the components of SWOT analysis?
- Market assessment
- Mission statement, vision statement, and values statement of the organization
- Organizational assessment
Which phase of strategic planning is the most complex and time consuming?
Market assessment
What are the components of Porter’s five forces model?
- Threat of new entrants: threat of new businesses setting up
- Bargaining power of buyers: the power that consumers have over the business
- Bargaining power of suppliers: the power that suppliers have over the business
- Threat of substitutes: the ability of customers to switch to a competitor’s product
- Intensity of competitive rivalry: the extent of market competition
What are the components of the healthcare five forces model?
- Power of the healthcare workforce
- Power of consumers and payers
- Innovations in technology
- The regulatory environment
- Intensity of competitive rivalry
Historically, who was considered the primary consumer/customer of healthcare organizations?
Physicians, as without them, the organization could not provide services
What is a payer in the healthcare sector?
The agents or organizations that pay for healthcare services—usually insurance companies
Which healthcare force is equivalent to Porter’s “threat of substitutes”?
Innovation in technology
Define
Vision
The very long-term statement of the business’s aspirations for where it ultimately wants to be
Define
Mission
The declaration of the business’s overall purpose—what it does, whom it serves, and how it does it
Define
Values (statement)
A statement of the organization’s culture—what characteristics it wants employees to convey to its customers
What are the stages of Tuckman’s theory of team building?
- Forming
- Storming
- Norming
- Performing
- Adjourning
Who invented the Swiss Cheese model?
Prof. James Reason
What do the slices and holes of the Swiss Cheese model represent?
- Slice: a protective factor that can reduce the likelihood of an incident occurring, e.g. workload management, information, analysis, care planning, communication
- Holes: errors or gaps in expected practice
What are examples of “slices” in the Swiss Cheese model?
- Workload management
- Information
- Analysis
- Care planning
- Communication
