Piedmont Athens Regional Hospital is a not-for-profit hospital and regional referral center serving seventeen counties in Northeast Georgia and Athens. It was founded as a community hospital by physicians in 1919. It employs over 3,300 people, including physicians and other healthcare professionals. The hospital provides 24-hour emergency treatment as well as all other surgical, medicinal, and diagnostic services. The hospital's aim is ""to improve the lives and health of everyone we touch."" The hospital's mission is to be the top healthcare institution, providing the best healthcare services and employing the best doctors in the world using cutting-edge technology. The business department is concerned with all the questions about patient's account at their time of discharge. The business office is opened from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Problem Statement
The training program being implemented on the business services program is insufficient or slightly not to standards, because employees are complaining about it and it can also be noted from the poor outcome of the work that they do. The poor training does not only affect the employees in the business services department, but its impact is felt by the whole organization. Therefore, the issue should be addressed immediately by improving the training program.
Purpose Statement
I am writing this report because of the concern and love that I have for the hospital and specifically for the business service department and the employees in general. I hope that I will be able to come up with an accomplished new and improved ways of training the business services department employees. It is also my hope that the result will be positive and that the organization will be glad to use my improved method to train the employees to achieve its goals.
Scope
Some of the facts that show that an improvement on training is crucial include;
Patients have been complaining about the services they receive at the business office and the cashier's window.
For the past one year, the hospital is suffering from a financial crisis, which means that something is being done wrongly in the business services department.
Some employees in the business services department are opting to resign because they are having a hard time on the job because they have not been well trained on what they should in the office. Therefore, they that they cannot handle the pressure.
Discussion
After interviewing the head of the department, he confirmed that he is aware of the employees complains about inadequate training. Survey shows that employees in the business services department feel that they do not get proper training and I being part one of the employees, it is my pleasure to do what I can to improve the situation and make the hospital the best facility for the community around it. The best way to develop the training program is to implement the PDCA cycle. I choose to use PDCA cycle plan because improvements can be made on a small scale and results can be examined to find out if the development is successful (Bernal, 2014).
Plan
Restructure the training program by including sections like;
a session for trainees to ask questions on what they do not understand,
include refreshment breaks during the training
include sketches and diagrams for better understanding
increase the days of training to three instead of two days to avoid rushing
Plan Implementation (Do)
After the training, I picked the four new employees in the department, and they were taken through a training using the new training program. The training three days. After the training, they were supposed to apply what they had learned in training in their work. After four weeks, I surveyed with the entire employees in the business services department and the hospital, in general, to find out if there was any impact from the new training program. I also interviewed two employees where one had been trained according to the new program while the other one had been trained using the old training program. This move was meant to find out if there was any work different between the two. The chart below shows the results of the survey.
Workflow and Patient Satisfaction
Number of weeks
The chart above shows that after the training, more patients have reported that they had been served well at the business services department and they enjoyed the services and were more satisfied than before. The number of patients increased as well because they loved the facilities. On the other hand, the results of the interview show that the new employees are enjoying their job and do not face as many challenges as the old employees. Therefore, the data indicates that there is a significant improvement in the business services department.
Act
Since the plan has worked positive and brought an improvement to the problem, it is important that the department takes it positively and use it in place of the old program. Everyone in the department should support the new training program to continue serving the clients well without doubts.
Conclusions and Recommendations
I have learned that it is not easy to change a policy that is already in use and implement a new one. It needs patience, determination, and hard work. It takes quite some time to try to convince the audience that indeed the problem that needs fixing does exist in the first place. To measure the sustainability of the new plan, all employees in the business services department will be taken through another training using the new training program then the outcome will be measured through carrying out a survey and several interviews.
Reference
Bernal, J. J. (2014). PDCA Cycle (Plan, Do, Check, Act): The deming cycle and the continuous improvement. Retrieved from https://pdcahome.com/english/267/pdca-cycle-continuous-improvement/
Appendices
Interview Questions
How many patients have you served today?
How do you feel about work today?
How many patients complained about your services and how many appreciated you?
Do you think the training helped you in any way?
What is your general view about business services department new training program?
Survey Questions
What is your comment on the services you have just received at the business services department?
If need be, will you still consider visiting our health facility
Would you recommend your friend to seek our services?
Is there anything that you would like the business services department to do to improve on the services it provides?
How many points would you give the department of business services out of ten?
Did you find any challenges when interacting with our stuff?
Did you note any change in our in the business services department regarding the services you received?
