A diagnosis of 22 challenges in Healthcare Administration

Review findings of a turnaround Management and Quality Consultant:

1. Communication and teamwork: Inadequate collaboration between Medical and Nursing teams resulted in care coordination challenges, impacting patient safety and overall quality of care.
2. Medication Errors and Delayed Drug Dispensing: Frequent medication administration errors and delays in dispensing Non-Formulary medication led to treatment inefficacy and posed significant risks to patient's well-being.
3. Dietary Services: Patients received suboptimal dietary guidance, hindering their nutritional recovery and overall health.
4. Scheduling and lack of specialized treatments: Patients experienced delays in Physiotherapy scheduling and lack of access to specialized treatments, impeding their rehabilitation progress.
5. Equipment: Frequent equipment malfunctions and delays in technical support affect patient diagnostics and care quality, raising concerns for patient safety.
6. Housekeeping compromises: The hospital's cleanliness standards pose infection risks. Suboptimal cleanliness standards and inadequate housekeeping practices compromise aseptic conditions for surgeries and patient care, jeopardizing patient safety.
7. Junior Doctors: Junior doctors ( MBBS, BAMS) struggle due to insufficient experience and lack of supervision, resulting in potential misdiagnoses and suboptimal patient care.
8. Hospital IT Management System: Frequent failures in the hospital's IT management system hinder timely access to critical patient information, affecting hospital operations and patient care.
9. Food quality and laundry services: Inconsistent food quality and delays in laundry services negatively impacted patient nutrition, satisfaction, and hygiene.
10. Pathology test results: Frequent delays in pathology test results hindered timely diagnoses and treatment decisions, raising concerns about patient outcomes.
11. Internal Auditing Processes: Inconsistent administrative and auditing processes resulted in compliance gaps and posed potential risks to patient safety and financial stability.
12. Infection Control: Insufficient infection control measures expose patients to hospital-acquired infections, compromising patient well-being and safety.
13. Meetings: Lengthy management, clinical, and nursing meetings disrupted daily hospital operations and hindered timely decision-making.
14. Workflows: Manual, non-digitalized workflows lead to inefficiencies and errors in critical processes, affecting overall hospital efficiency.
15. External Doctor/Consultants: Unpredictable visits by external consultants disrupted schedules, creating uncertainty in patient medication ordering, care, and clinical operations.
16. Appointment Scheduling: Inconsistent timing and date arrangements for appointments have given rise to scheduling conflicts, impacting both patient appointments and staff coordination."
17. Interdepartmental Workflows: The lack of integrated workflows between departments hinders effective collaboration and information sharing, impacting patient care.
18. Approving Authorities: Delays in obtaining approvals from authorities result in postponed decisions, potentially affecting hospital operations and patient care.
19. Heads of Departments: Bureaucratic and inefficient HODs obstruct swift decision-making, creating obstacles in delivering efficient patient care.
20. Work Practices: Selective and partial work practices compromise fairness and equity within the organization, affecting the quality of patient care.
21. Culture: A culture perpetuated by Top Management and their Assistants/Clerks hindered transparency, collaboration, and the overall well-being of the organization.
22. Account Dept: Face-to-face staff interviews have unveiled problems associated with prolonged delays in account payments and unfair practices, which pose additional challenges for hospital staff and doctors striving to deliver efficient and high-quality patient care.

These findings highlight the critical issues affecting the hospital's overall operations, patient care, and organizational well-being.

Addressing these challenges is essential to ensure the delivery of efficient and high-quality patient care.