Results in the Hospital

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effective and

accomplished hospital managers in the country. Six years later, the American

College of Hospital Administrators named him Hospital Administrator of the Year.

In his short acceptance speech Armstrong said: “To take the job as hospital

administrator was the most intelligent thing I did in my whole life—it’s been a

wonderful six years. But the one question I came in to answer, I still can’t answer.

In fact, I am more confused now than I was six years ago. I know now that a

modern big-city hospital has a multitude of objectives and serves a multitude of

customers and clients: the doctors, who look upon the hospital as an extension of

their practice; the patients, who expect us to cure them or at least not to harm

them; their families; the community; the various agencies—governments, Blue

Cross, insurance companies, employers, unions, and so on—who pay our bills;

and many others. I know that we are expected to remedy damage that has

already been done, the one job we are reasonably good at. But we are

increasingly expected to be the community’s health care center and to help keep

healthy people healthy. Increasingly we are expected to substitute for the private

physician in treating the poor, especially in the inner city. “I have given up the

hope of finding one performance goal and one performance measurement. But

what bothers me is that I really don’t know how to measure performance in any

one of these missions. I do not know how to define what is ‘good performance’ in

any area, what to strive for, what to give priority to, and what to abandon or play

down. With 14 percent of the country’s national product going to health care—

and the cost going up—health care is too important not to have objectives,

performance standards, and measurements. But can any one of you experienced

hospital administrators in the audience tell me what objectives, goals, standards,

and measurements you are using or which ones I might try using?”

Questions

1. Can you think of better Communication to improve the performance?

2. Propose a tool using your Communication skills to improve the

performance