Manager’s Role in Healthcare

Manager’s Role in Healthcare

Hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities provide patient services through doctors, nurses, diagnostic technicians and other medical staff. In order for hospitals to provide quality service, to make a profit, and survive as a business, they must handle administrative tasks, such as human resources, budgeting, maintaining supplies, health care or medical services, it is imperative that managers oversee these profit-making tasks. There is evidence that managers’ time spent and work can influence quality and safety clinical outcomes, processes and performance, therefore in this paper we will be discussing the manager’s role in the health in a form of responsibilities; employee motivation and conflict Management.

Manager’s Responsibilities

One of the main responsibilities of the healthcare manager is to promote a necessary environment that can provide quality health care at maximum profit. Managers have to administer payroll and benefits, determine budgets, distribute regular communications, and distribute regular communication. They also have to enforce relevant health care laws, keep up with technology, maintain standards, and assist external meetings in which they represent their organization; Meeting such as community forums and investor gatherings. Managers conduct customary meetings with doctor, patients and vendors in order to establish healthcare needs and how medical decisions influence the procedures and finances of their facilities.

There are different types of Managers, therefore the roles of managers may differ according to their titles and the functions they conduct in their facilities. Hospital administrators have the responsibility of the staff and maintenance of medical centers, admissions and making sure that patients receive the necessary services. In large facilities, clinical manager’s attention is on a specific department, such as surgery or nursing. They established procedures for their areas of responsibility and set goals after consulting with other clinical managers and the chief administrator. Health information managers make sure that sensitive medical data is safeguarded from casual and unauthorized access.

Manager’s responsibilities in the healthcare system may change due to the size of the facility. Managers may be the only nonmedical workers in small practices or facilities of individual doctors. In larger facilities, managers regularly supervise clerical and other administrative staff. In which cases, they have the responsibility for hiring, interviewing, and sometimes firing these workers. Managers assign work schedules, determine salaries, and train staff, ensuring that they adapt and work well with existing staff. They may also promote employees to supervisory or department head positions. But in order for managers do their job and execute their responsibilities efficiently, they need excellent leadership skills to motivate their employees as well as good interpersonal abilities.

The manager usually serves as the organization’s spokesperson when the media looks for information from a medical facility, however in some large facilities, they have fulltime spokespeople or public relations representatives. In this role, the manager holds press conferences or delegates delivery of press releases to announce important news or events. The manager may also answer questions from local or national news reporters seeking to requests information about the facility or expert opinion for feature articles.

The career outlook is that health care managers regularly come into their careers with a bachelor’s degree in health administration although many managers have master degrees. Managers commonly start as assistants in order to gain real world experience and after many years of experience and increasing responsibility, they may finally get to the manager position. According to the U.S. Bureau (BLS), from 2010 to 2020, the BLS predicted that health care managers will see job increases three times more than those for the average manager since the aging baby boomer population will demand more medical services, which managers oversee and that as of May 2011, health care managers averaged a salary of $96,030 per year, with annual lows under $52,730 and yearly highs exceeding $147,890.

Employee Motivation

In order to understand employee motivation better, I would like to start by defining what motivation is. Motivation can be define as the psychological forces that push an individual’s behavior, effort, and level of persistence towards a certain direction. Therefore, motivation is an element that is very important to understand how it works by an organization in order to obtain high levels of productivity and efficiency. Also, in order to attain these high levels, it is important that the organization knows what are the classic motivational theories and techniques, and to use utilize those various techniques for optimum results. As noted above, motivation consist of psychological forces that drives employees into a needed direction together with the appropriate level of behavior, effort, and persistence.

From the definition, one would figure out that motivation can work as an important tool for goal and objective achievement. There are a few motivation theories and techniques in general that a firm, a company and even the healthcare system must know to apply them on its employees.

Motivational Theories

1) According to the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: this comes as a no surprise since Maslow explained that motivation is based on a sequenced hierarchy of needs. The hierarchy starts with the lowest physiological needs (Food, sleep, sex), followed by safety needs (Job security and environment safety), social needs (feelings of belonging and love), self-esteem needs (feelings of importance, value, and meaningfulness), and ended by the highest need of self-actualization, which is described by reaching ones ultimate potential. It is very important that a company comprehends these needs and fulfill them accordingly to achieve employee motivation.

2) Herzberg’s two-factor theory. This theory is established on two elements: Satisfiers and Dissatisfies. The first, includes intrinsic motivators that are attained from the work itself (responsibility, advancement, and recognition). The second, on the other hand, is associated with extrinsic motivators based on the work environment (Policies, salary, peers, and supervision).

3) Locke’s goal theory: founded by Edwin A. Locke, it is a motivational theory that suggests employees’ involvement in setting organizational