How to Increase the Morale of Employees at a Clinic

Health Clinic Chaos: Case Study

The busy Blessed Heart health clinic is located in Seattle, Washington. The clinic is a Federally Qualified Public Health Clinic that has been serving different patients within the area. The population served by Blessed Heart includes Medicaid and SCHIP population as well as other underinsured self-pay patients. The clinic has 30 physicians who are charged with different roles based on their qualifications. Blessed Heart has just hired a new administrator, Ms. Johnson, in order to handle the hospital operations and address the issues constantly raised by the physicians. Ms. Johnson has worked for other clinics within the area and has been credited with transforming the clinics. Her last role was based within Seattle for Mexi Health Clinic. While she was there, she managed to transform the clinic and eliminate the manual processes by implementing an HMIS. The system assisted the clinic to improve on its record keeping and delivery of services. It was for this reason that the management of Blessed Heart Clinic felt she would be better placed to handle and address the issues facing the clinic. The clinic is in dire need of changes if it going to survive and continue delivering services to patients. The manual system of capturing and storing medical records is the major problem faced by the clinic. The clinic needs to implement a patient records management system that would ensure all records are computerized and can be accessed by physicians across the clinic.

Major complaints

The first major task that Ms. Johnson is faced with was a myriad of complaints by the physicians. Dr. Lego was the physician leader, and they were demanding for changes in the way the clinic is run to ensure they can concentrate on treating patients and not performing administrative tasks. The physicians had ten complaints that they presented (Buchbinder Sharon B., 2011), and Ms. Johnson had to act on them if she wanted to keep the physicians at the clinic. All the physicians were threatening to quit and go to work for the HMO across the street. The first complaint was regarding patient registration where the clinic was using the FIFO method. The method was good, but it had limitation especially if a patient had to undergo other tests. Using the system, the patient would have to stay on the queue because he/she cannot jump the queue even if they had seen the doctor previously. The system also limited patient treatment because patients would spend long hours in ques. According to Dr. Lego, the medical records were in disarray and not electronic, and this led to the loss of important information. Without electronic records, patient registration becomes also process and returning patients have to redo the paperwork. The loss of records demanded that patients have to undergo tests that they have already done, and this would be an additional cost. Tests results should be communicated in a timely fashion. However, this was not the case at the clinic. Patients were forced to wait for a long time to get their results, and this would have devastating effects.

The physicians have reported Ms. Moody, the woman who runs the patient registration to the previous administrator. The administrator had counseled her, but her behavior had not changed. Ms. Moody is reported to be hostile to patients, physicians, and nurses. This is not an acceptable behavior of handling sick patients. The physicians have a lot on their plate and on top of it they have to undertake other administrative duties like clinic coverage, sick time, and vacations. This clearly demonstrates their need for a change in the clinic's administration Not only the medical records are in disarray, but medical supplies and medications storage is in total chaos. Physicians are unable to locate simple things like tongue depressors and alcohol wipes in the exam rooms. The organization of the exam rooms should be changed, and medical supplies restocked frequently. Blessed Heart Clinic is an inner city clinic, but this is not an excuse to leave the facility in its current the filthy state. The janitor has an attitude and is unwilling to perform his responsibilities. The morale of the maintenance team is low, and they all have an attitude. Lastly, the security of the clinic is wanting, and two staff members have been victims of attack.

Solutions

The major problem facing the clinic is staff morale and motivation. Ms. Johnson has a challenging task to uplift the morale and motivate the employees of the clinic (Ken & Scott, 2008). The physicians and nurses might seem to be motivated, but the activity should incorporate all employees of the clinic. The loss or misplacement of medical records cannot be solved by the implementation of a computerized patient management system. If the employees are managing or running the system are still not motivated the system will fail and the records would not be entered into the system. The new administrator has to investigate the reason for the low morale and attitude of most employees within the clinic. The physicians might be the cause of all the problems facing the clinic, but since the clinic cannot survive without them everyone would overlook their negative contribution. In the case of Ms. Moody, she is moody and has an attitude towards the sick patients. This results in the double registration of patients and misplacement of patient files.

Ms. Johnson should first screen for resilience, and then offer the employee attributional training (Prosser, 2014). This way she would manage to increase the employee's motivation. The janitor is reported to be sleeping on the job most of the time. This behavior could be indicative of an underlying problem at home. The administrator needs to investigate the reason behind the janitor's actions and establish a correct course of action based on what she finds out. The janitor has the hardest and challenging job of ensuring the clinic is clean at all times, but he also needs the other clinic staff to respect his work. If he continues cleaning and no one appreciates his efforts, he would get demotivated and would see no value in performing his duties.