At first glance into this case it appears that the mission statement is sending a message that it is a public service announcement advocating a diverse organization.
Chris Smith is a newly promoted executive assistant at the Faith Community Hospital; he reports to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) on the first day in his position. Soon after arriving to work, he was immediately whisked into a meeting with his new boss, where the CEO begins to explain the current state of the Faith Community Hospital.
The CEO commences the speech by explaining the significance of everyone's influence and persuasive ability to Chris. Specifically, he states that all the doctors, board of directors, patients, stakeholders, family members, and others, have the ability to influence his or her own thinking and differences based on their ethical values and hospital relations and/or relationships. The hospital has a religious heritage that entices religious people from all across the rainbow. This is one of many problems that the hospital faces, despite the fact that many may have a commonality in their religious beliefs. The CEO goes on to explain how quality patient care was strongly affected by the differences in the points of views of the staff members. This explanation was primarily based on the various interpretations of the Hippocratic Oath the patients were receiving (regarding various issues). Each staff member has the hospital's best interest at heart, however they all have different ways in which they will do or show it. Some will allow patients to get care even if they do not have insurance and on the other hand will refuse service if patients do not. Essentially, this action is an effort to imply one of two scenarios. Either makes the hospital provide the impression of a Good Samaritan or contrarily, act as a business oriented institution, knowing that bills need to be paid, so no free service is provided. The patients themselves are the same as the members of staff, split. Participants expect to be miraculously healed and at the same time refuse to take certain medical services. They want improvements and healing to take place without the responsibility or burden of self-care or allowing the staff to decide the necessary treatments for them. Furthermore, one essay explained about a case in the neo-natal ward. Here, child protective services, in the process of taking custody of a baby and threatening to file charges against the hospital because of the way the hospitals' staff provides services, failed to provide service at all.
These invaluable factors add to the hospital's inability to attract patients in order to cover costs of the hospital's operation. Because of the collaborations with insurance companies and the regulators, the hospital is at their mercy when it comes to payments. Like the HMO's, PPO's, TLA's etc., they decide who gets covered, how much the hospital gets paid, and when. The hospital's premium cost has decreased over the past year, hence the hospital now has to increase the daily patients care from the previous year cost of $217.00 to $240.00. According to the hospital's financial analyst, the hospital patient population has decreased by seven percent. This is a twenty eight percent of fixed cost that does not change or fluctuate with patient population.
The CEO is now in a difficult position, he now has to consider ways to increase the patient population or cut fixed cost. This is if and only if the patient population does not increase. For example, he may have to implement this activity, just to break even.
Narrowing down on the core issue, the problem is that Faith Community Hospital is not making enough revenue in order to maintain business. The hospital is not making any money because of its inability to maintain enough patient payments to cover their bills, seeing that they are a non profit organization. In addition, Faith Community has failed to attract new patients or maintain the old ones. One primary factor is based on their lack of or small amount of mixed ethical integrity with staff and stakeholders alike. For example in this case analysis three staff members in the ICU initiated Do Not Resuscitate directives. The problem was that no written orders to that effect existed. Hence, integrity then becomes questionable. At the same time, there is other staff members that are sincere and qualified and are driven by a personal directive that says, "we have to do all that we can."
In another situation, a staff member did not follow DNR directives, even though they were in place. In these separate incidents, the staff members had the support of the patient's families. Based on these incidents the conclusion can be drawn that the hospital's staff and board members are not unified ethically. Everyone has a different point of view, ethical standard, and morale code of conduct. With this they will all have different interpretations of the mission statement which reads:
"With the foundation and commitment of our spiritual heritage and values, our mission is to promote the health and well-being of the people in the communities we server through a comprehensive continuum of services provided in collaboration with the partners who share the same vision and values."
This inconsistency in perspective adds confusion to the patient's care environment and is evident to patients who are directly affected by these problems. The hospital's mission statement has some ethical implications. Although sometimes considered a fallacy, most people generally relate to morale and ethics.
Now that we have identified the problem, there are different ways in which the solution can be found. Using the brainstorming tool and technique, explorations can be made ultimately for some effective, reasonable, and possible solutions. Firstly, uniting the ethical standard of the company in order to drive patient cost down. This will cover a number of operational costs of the hospital. With this implemented it is expected that all the members of staff and board members operate all on the same page (avoiding confusion and allotting a standard to follow). This will make the patient feel a sense of security, as there will be no discrimination or difference in service(s). The alternatives are to change the mission statement, to exclude the religious implication, and/or to change or remove the name, Faith, from the hospital's name. This sends a crucial message that when other hospitals fail to come there no matter what the circumstances are, one is always able. It is important to note that charitable organizations will be totally eliminated. Furthermore, the hospital is not ethically obligated to the church or their religious customs. This should attract a whole new clientele, in a different demographic, hence providing the opportunity for patient numbers to increase. As soon as the hospital starts attracting patients with one hundred percent coverage on their insurance, the hospital staff will be able to concentrate on quality patient services and concentrate less on getting patient numbers up. The regulators should get paid; hence the hospital should get their full reimbursement. Review the Pie Chart.
Reference:
Wikipedia, (2006). Perspective. Retrieved on 05/24/2006 from
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspective_(cognitive).