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The analysis of Arbor Hospice
Arbor Hospice is a non-profit organization designed to provide first care service for terminaly ill patients and their families. The organization provides care programs for children who have lost their parents and ensures that their needs are met. The Arbor Hospice allows patients to receive care from their home or within their setting as long as the patients are comfortable with it. Their mission is to provide comfort, assurance, family care, ensure patients with life-limiting illness are well care for as well as educate others on how to nurture others. Their main goals are to provide the highest quality care and provide a place for individuals to complete their lives. They deliver comprehensive services for adults, children and in-patient care. The board of directors consists of social workers, professional counselors, nurses and qualified doctors. These members ensure that psychological support and management of patients with critical conditions are achieved. The Arbor Hospice receives revenue from different sources such as health insurances, retirement beneficiaries, social security funds, and pension money. However, there are three major budget concerns facing the organization and they might take the next twenty years to be accomplished. The gap between the existing revenue demands, need for huge capital in expanding home care facilities and the need for modernizing current facilities are the key budgeting concerns.
Various concerns demonstrate to a knowledgeable outsider that they may become a problem rather than a concern if not attended to properly. First, the gap between the existing revenues and hospital demands is one the main issues that may face the organization. There is an increase of patients annually and this demands more capital as well as personnel who will manage the increased numbers of patients in the hospital. This calls for more capital that will be used in paying workers and expanding hospital facilities and providing modern facilities. In case the gap between the existing revenues and hospital demands would not be solved or attended to, they will become a significant problem in the organization. This gap of existing income and hospital demands issues may result due to poor planning and resource allocation (Buis, 2008). Thus, there is a need for the board of governors to plan using the available resources on the way it would be allocated in order to meet the required necessities of the organization.
Secondly, the need for modernizing current facilities is another issue that the organization may face. The Arbor Hospice requires funding from the government and other supportive bodies to generate funds for the hospital. This will help the board of governors to meet the necessary needs of the organization. Providing supportive funds will enable the organization to provide the pediatric care, free education programs to the communities and meet the patient as well as the family needs (Michigan Nurses Association, 2004). Since there is increased number of patients, the board of management needs to modernize home based care facilities. This should be included in the future budget of expanding home based modern facilities (Arbor Hospice, 2011). Therefore, this will contribute to a better environment where patients would receive better services without any problem.
Lastly, there is need for huge capital in expanding home care facilities. Expanding home care facilities requires enormous capital. These facilities need enormous capital that might take about 20 years. Hence, the hospital can utilize the available resources effectively to ensure that the home based facilities have been provided in a wider area. Moreover, if the organization may not get enough capital, catering for the needs of patients and families will become a problem. This is because the number of patients keeps on increasing every year thus demand more capital to meet their needs. Providing freed training and education programs to various communities requires enormous capital. For instance, Arbor Hospice received a qualification by the Community Health Accreditation Program (CHAP) to practice high care standards (Arbor Hospice, 2011). CHAP focus on quality services, practicability and resources (Buis, 2008). However, in case the organization would not have enough resources, this program would become a problem. Therefore, it would not accomplish their mission of providing health care services and training programs to the various communities.
Varied political components would hinder Arbor Hospice from achieving their long-term goals of ensuring that the hospital facilities have been extended and modernized. First, funding would be a political problem that may lead to the organization not to accomplish its mission because of inadequate resources to meet the needs of the ever-increasing patients. The Arbor Hospice participates in outreach community programs whereby they educate the public about the services they provide and enabling the community to improve their health status. This is through educating them on preventive measures of certain diseases before they occur because this organization believes that prevention is better than cure (Michigan Nurses Association, 2004). Arbor Hospice receives many patients every year, and many of them live in hospitals with their loved ones. About 17 million US dollars are generated in every year in order to cater for the needs of these patients (Buis, 2008). However, funding this organization has been a political issue. This is because the organizations that pay for the Hospice cares such as Medicare and Medicaid organization sometimes fails to provide adequate funds to them.
Secondly, another argument that political supporters would raise is the reformation of health care services. This is through changing the health care bills that would affect the social security fund. For instance, the Medicare compensation fund has been reduced due to political problems an indication that the level of consumption has reduced. Despite the fact that the number of patients are increasing, the hospital facilities would be highly demanded. Moreover, health care reformation would create changes that might affect the patients. This is because creating health policies affects the health care especially families and children would be affected differently depending on their circumstances. This may depend on their incomes, home states as well as job situations. However, the health care reform would create laws that would make the non-profit organizations especially the Hospice to direct their research finding to ways of maintaining the patient health (Grier, 2010).
In addition, in case the politicians delay to implement laws governing the operation system of Hospice health care, the hospital may be hindered from development. The revenues generated from the hospital services cannot sustain the demands of the hospital. Moreover, due to political issues, the budgetary allocations cannot be increased to cover the non-profit sectors. This may force the Hospice departments to reduce their health care costs in order to ensure that the available funds meets the needs of the patients as well as sustains the hospital facilities. The board of directors would be forced to cut costs directed towards paying qualified health care practitioners and encourage high skilled individuals to volunteer themselves. This may create an impact on the performance of the organization.
Lastly, the political components such as the preexisting conditions in the provision of health care insurance coverage would create problems in the Hospice organization. These conditions would contribute to poor health care service provision thus hindering the organization from achieving their objectives. Moreover, some board members would be against the policy of health care coverage. This is because Hospice is a non-profit organization and it mostly helps those patients with poor financial status. Most patients living in the hospital with their loved ones are those patients who are unable to afford health insurance as well as comfort those who have lost their loved ones. Therefore, the body of directors would stand firm to argue against the legislative policies that can affect their organization hence continuing to carry out their activities successfully.
As a General Director, I will help the board of directors to take the possible steps to fend off the potential problems or at least restructure them if they occur. One of the possible steps is encourage the Hospice management team to identify the available resources necessary for accomplishing the required tasks within the hospital. The management team would identify the available resources such as financial, human personnel as well as materials vital for accomplishing the objectives of the organization. The financial accountants should help the management team in ensuring that there is an improvement in revenues collected. This should be done through carrying out financial analysis annually in order to ensure that if the organization is utilizing the resources well or not thus making the necessary adjustments. Moreover, the financial management would carry out the necessary steps by appealing the government to provide them with enough hospital grants. This will help them to overcome financial problem as well as improve the hospital facilities.
Another possible step is through organizing diverse meetings that aim at improving the performance of the hospital. They can encourage the community to develop the potential skills that can help them to handle and take care of patients while they are at home. This can be successfully achieved through carrying out community education programs in order to empower the patients and those looking after the sick people. Moreover, providing social support services and expanding them not only to the hospitalized patients but also to patients at home. The role of Arbor Hospice is to provide health care services to patients in hospitals and those in patients in various homes. Therefore, these services would be balanced in both areas in order to enable the patients with terminal illness to recover quickly. Counseling activities would be significant because it would help the community members top cope up with patients suffering from chronic and terminal illness.
Encouraging the financial department to carry out budget analysis and make adjustments where necessary. This is vital because it will help the organization to save cost and even help them to improve the budget thus covering the essential needs first. Additionally, the board of governors would make sure that the enormous costs would be cut down thus ensuring that the change processes have been achieved. This will enable the financial accountants to conform to the international accounting standards as well as improve in resource allocation thus properly utilizing the funds granted to the organization. The organization would implement policies and gather the required information that would enable them to improve the budgetary process in order to enable them achieve the organizational objectives.
The last step is to encourage or seek for more funding programs in order to enable the organization get enough financial resources that would be used in providing modern hospital facilities. The Hospice care is compensated by Medicare and Medicaid thus they benefit from the part of the Hospice care costs (Arbor Hospice, 2011). However, due to the increased number of patients to the hospital, the organization is now facing the problem of providing improved and modern hospital facilities to home based patients. Moreover, the benefits the benefits they receive are not enough to enable them meet the needs of the increased number of patients. Therefore, the organization would seek for more donors from developed nations especially the United States. This will enable them to get adequate grants that can enable them to meet the cost of hospital expenses. Therefore, they will be able to meet the needs of the ever-increasing patients as well as meet the costs of carrying out community programs for interior places.
As a General Director, I will take various mechanical steps in order to address the issue of budgeting. The foremost mechanical step that I will take is to change the budgeting format. He budget would be structured in away that can be able to meet the intended objectives of the organization. Poor budget planning usually contributes to poor performance and mismanagement of resources in an organization. Therefore, I will encourage the financial analysts to make changes to the budget in order to meet the needs of the organizations and that of the patients. Due to the gap created between the existing revenue demands and need for huge capita. I will make sure that the budget is adjusted well to solve these problems of financial allocation. Moreover, I will make sure that the budgets are broken down into two main sections that are the non-personnel and personnel costs. In this budget, each position and time percentage devoted to the organization should be identified. I would include the estimation of hourly working rate and supporting details, programs carried out and the costs or expenses used in managing the organization.
Additionally, I would encourage the board of directors to prepare or gather data from within and outside the organization. This data is crucial because it would enable the organization to clarify and make changes where necessary. This will contribute to better performance of the organization. Gathering data from various places including primary and secondary data are vital. This is because these data creates the required changes that will enable the Hospice care organization to operate smoothly. Moreover, data gatherings and changes would enable the board of governors to follow those data changes in adjusting the budget. This will enable the organization to improve their performance. The data will be used as a guideline in checking the performance of the organization.
I expect the board of governors of Hospice care organization to respond positively to my efforts to head off these possible problems. I will ensure that the problems are solved within the time possible. I will address the issue of minimizing or utilizing the minimum resources available well to ensure that the community has received better services. Moreover, I expect the management team including the social workers, the registered nurse, spiritual care, Hospice Aides and many other management teams to respond positively. This is because they are part of the team that would be affected once the organization would perform poorly. Therefore, I will encourage them to work as a team in providing better services to patients and the community. Working and solving organizational problems together is fundamental because it enables the team to solve problems or arrive at the decisions faster. This will lead to better organizational management and creating better organization performance thus achieving the organizational objectives.
In conclusion, Arbor Hospice is a non-profit organization that provides first care service for terminally ill patients and their families. The gap between the existing revenue demands, demand for large capital in expanding home care facilities and modernizing current facilities needs are the major budgeting concerns. Therefore, various concerns concern if not attended properly would contribute to poor performance of the organization. Additionally, different political components would hinder Arbor Hospice from achieving their long-term goals. They would hinder funding of the hospital and health care reformation policies are among t eh political components. This may affect the performance of the organization in one way or another. Therefore, possible steps should be taken to fend off the potential problems or at least restructure the problems if they occur. This will lead to improved performance of Hospice care thus enabling them to achieve their intended objectives.
References
Arbor Hospice (2011). What Makes Arbor Hospice Different? Retrieved on December 16, 2011
from http://www.arborhospice.org/
Buis, L. R. (January 01, 2008). Emotional and informational support messages in an online
Hospice support community. Computers, Informatics, Nursing: Cin, 26, 6.
Grier, P (March 26, 2010). “Health care reform bill 101: Will it make health care more
effective?” The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved on December 16, 2011 from http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0326/Health-care-reform-bill-101-Will-it-make-health-care-more-effective
Michigan Nurses Association. (2004). Proud of our past, preparing for our future: A history of
the Michigan Nurses Association, 1904-2004. Paducah: Turner Pub.
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