1. Describe the health care organization or network.
Banner Health is a non-business entity organization that is based in Phoenix, Arizona. This
organization’s services are distributed to over 25 hospitals and 6 states within the United States
of America (Kuhn, & Lehn, 2015). A nonprofit organization phenomenon means that the firm
utilizes its surplus of the income/revenue generated to achieve a long-term objective. Banner
Health was developed in 1999 after the bonding and merging between the Samaritan health
system and the Lutheran health system. These two non-profitable firms combined and distributed
shares to different states such as Mexico, Kansas, and Minnesota and evaluated its headquarters
in Arizona. Statistics show that Banner health is one of the largest employers in the United States
has approximately 50000 employees to several hospitals. Its diverse management has resulted in
generating a net income of 5.7 billion in 2017(Kuhn, & Lehn, 2015).
2. Describe the organization’s overall readiness based on your findings.
Banner health has proved its readiness concerning meeting the health care needs of citizens in
the next decade through the application of several concepts and strategies. They include, it has
provided employment opportunities to nurses and physicians in several states improving the
effectiveness of day to day operation activities of health centers. Even distribution of nurses in
health institutions has reduced the congestion of patients as a result of providing quick and
quality health services. To be employed in this health system, one has to achieve a professional
level of health skills, a team player, self-motivated and acquire good communication skills to
interact well with the patients. This organization has also shown its readiness through the
expansion of clinical branches offering affordable health care treatment to the citizens to
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improve their lifestyle. Moreover, Banner health has incorporated the Affordable Care Act to
90% of its health centers through international relations with governmental officials
(Blumenthal, Abrams, & Nuzum, 2015). Banner Health has collaborated with institutions such as
the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in sharing of knowledge and technology
resulting in the development of over $80 million Cancer department in its headquarters. This is
because different types of cancer such as prostate and breast cancer in men and women
respectively are expensive to treat where patients use more finances to seek treatment in other
neighboring countries. Banner Health has shown readiness in the development of its cancer
treatment equipment and medication with professional physicians to serve the citizens currently
and in the next decade.
3. Prepare a strategic plan to address issues about network growth, nurse staffing, resource
management, and patient satisfaction.
Network growth
Networking in a health setting refers to the connectivity between health organizations,
employers, employees, and patients. Network growth has been characterized by a variety of
issues such as insecurity in the organization, this is experienced as the network grows when more
employees are recruited who become strangers to the culture of the organization. Poor network
performance and configuration management are among the main issues in network growth. This
issue, however, needs a strategic plan; clarifying the vision of the organization will help the
employees to identify their strengths and weaknesses resulting in the creation of a good
relationship amongst them to improve networking. Analyzing information and statistics helps the
employees in the organization to stay updated on current issues avoiding confusion.
Implementing the rules and regulations of the organization will promote unity and togetherness
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among employees and employers that will result in smooth networking procedures such as
employee assessment programs.
Nurse staffing
This is the identification and choosing of specific nursing personnel to reach a particular
patient's needs and satisfaction (Cho et al., 2015). These nurses are chosen in health
organizations to improve the lifestyle of a patient through proper and quality health care
procedures. Nurse staffing is significant because it results in the reduction of death rate in health
clinics, a high number of patients are discharged in a day due to intensive care. This concept also
is characterized by the main problem of the need for nurses to feel favored than the others.
Favoritism has been an agent of conflicts within the organization that requires a good strategic
plan to be tackled. Even the distribution of roles to different departments in nursing is one
method to reduce misunderstanding where each nurse will be aware of his/her duties in the
health setting without feeling inferior or superior to others. Another plan is by using tags or
different uniform colors within the health firm for example nurses operating in the cancer
department should wear a different colored uniform as compared to nurses in the delivery
section. This method promotes unity and prevents confusion.
Resource management
This is the utilization of resources for the effective running of the organization. Resource
management is also characterized by several challenges, they include, the failure to asses
resource risks in a health setting, lack of appropriate skilled management team, the habit of
assigning resources without consistency and the inability to optimize the use of resources. One of
the main strategic plans to address these problems is by providing adequate resources in the
health organization to avoid limitations. The resource management team to avail each resource
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for a specific role at the right time and understanding the right people to hire to help in the proper
management of health resources.
Patient satisfaction
Patient satisfactory becomes challenging when the nurse and the patient fail to be on the
same page through agreement on treatment procedures or communication problems (Batbaatar,
Dorjdagva, Luvsannyam, Savino, & Amenta, 2017). Most patients also love to incorporate
family members in their treatment which is not acceptable by the nurses in specific treatment that
leads to conflicts. However, these health problems can be handled through proper planning;
nurses to engage with their patients providing online tools with health information to speed up
their healing process, nurses should also educate their patients on the preventive measure to
escape other illnesses and the use of technology and information to satisfy their needs.
4. Identify any current or potential issues within the organizational culture and discuss how
these issues may affect the aspect of the strategic plan.
Banner health as a diverse firm experiences organizational culture issues currently such as, a
section of nurses employees get discouraged and demonstrate boredom in nursing staffing
situations. This concept isolates them from chosen nurses that make them feel of less importance
that results in the poor framework. Supervisors also in this organization misuse their power by
overworking new nurses and giving extra instructions which are a form of adult abuse. Another
main challenge is that communication only trickles down and not up; this means that employees
are not allowed to address their superior unless there is a burning issue while the superior address
their employees at any given time. All these problems affect a higher percentage of the strategic
plan which results in the exploitation of resources, nurses resigning and some health institutions
being closed due to fund embezzlement.
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5. Propose a theory or a model that could be used to support the implementation of the strategic
plan for this organization. Explain why this theory is best.
The best theory to be used in the implementing of strategic plans is the introduction of health
fines. This policy or bill to be made legal by the government and introduced to all health
institutions. The main objective of this policy is to make sure that all health organizations are
obligated to take part in the implementation of strategic plans to improve their health setting. All
health rules and regulations to be considered and failure to do this, 10% fine to be deducted from
monthly salary. This is the best and most efficient way to engage people in the implementation
of a strategic plan because of fear of losing money which is something that people will want to
avoid. This theory should not only apply to health organizations but also in government,
industries and development firms.
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Reference
Kuhn, B., & Lehn, C. (2015). Value-based reimbursement: the banner health network
experience. Frontiers of health services management, 32(2), 17-31.
Blumenthal, D., Abrams, M., & Nuzum, R. (2015). The affordable care act at 5 years.
Cho, E., Sloane, D. M., Kim, E. Y., Kim, S., Choi, M., Yoo, I. Y., … & Aiken, L. H. (2015).
Effects of nurse staffing, work environments, and education on patient mortality: an
observational study. International journal of nursing studies,52(2), 535-542.
Batbaatar, E., Dorjdagva, J., Luvsannyam, A., Savino, M. M., & Amenta, P. (2017).
Determinants of patient satisfaction: a systematic review. Perspectives in public
health, 137(2), 89-101.