Introduction:
The corporate governance entails the system in which a set of rules, process and practices are included in order to direct, control and manage an organization (Tricker & Tricker, 2015). The corporate governance of a hospital or health service center is called the clinical governance. The clinical governance of any health organization is the system of managing the entire staffs including the clinicians (Brennan & Flynn, 2013). In addition, the clinical governance of the hospital also shares the accountability and responsibility of the quality of care and the development of the organization in terms of customer satisfaction. Any drawbacks of the organization in performing the responsibility and the managing the system is referred to the failure of the clinical governance.
Clinical Governance Failures in Bundaberg Hospital:
An inquiry commission was created for investigating the clinical governance failure in the Bundaberg Hospital in Queensland, which indicates the negligence and irresponsibility of the administration of the hospital as well as Dr. Jayant Patel (www.qphci.qld.gov.au. 2017). The major findings of the inquiry are stated in the following section (Delaney, 2015). The findings are:
- The Medical Board of Queensland and the administration of the Bundaberg Hospital showed some serious negligence and irresponsibility while appointing Dr. Patel for the post of senior medical officer in surgery in 2003. The administration did not properly check the paper credentials of Dr. Patel.
- The administration also failed in assessing the eligibility, competency and the qualification of Dr. Patel for performing the responsibility as the senior medical officer in surgery.
- The inquiry found out that the administration of the hospital not only failed in assessing the papers and the eligibility of Dr. Patel, but also did not organize proper investigation on the authenticity of the previous practice and experience of Dr. Patel in United States (Delaney, 2015). Proper investigation would be able to show that Dr. Patel surrendered his practice license and as unemployed for more than one year.
- The appointment of Dr. Patel was done without proper evaluation of the clinical competency and skills on the certain position assigned for him. The Acting Director of Medical Service, Dr. Nydam, also failed and showed negligence in following the process of privileging and credentialing the policy and guidelines of the Queensland Health.
- Keating as the Acting Director of Medical service replaced Dr. Nydam. Similarly as Dr. Nydam, he also failed in assessing the competency of Dr. Patel. In addition, he also did not did not check and follow the credentials of Policy and Guidelines of the appointment of Dr. Patel. Moreover, the employment of Dr. Patel was extended and registration was renewed in the meantime.
- Keating thought the credentialing and privileging was just the part of the system, and ignored the real assessment of checking the background of Dr. Patel.
- There were 17 deaths due to the unacceptable and poor level of care by Dr. Patel.
- Patel lacked the proper judgment quality and technical knowledge and ability.
- The prime focus of the hospital was budget system and not to the complaints. Dr. Keating on behalf of the administration neglected number of complaints. Accordingly, the he failed in assessing the seriousness of the complaints.
- Leck and Dr. Keating failed in investigating the repeated complaints against Dr. Patel.
- Both Dr. Keating and Mr. Leck were concerned with administrative procedures on the surface level rather than the substance of the procedures.
Governance Mechanism to Avoid Failure:
This section of the report discusses few implications related to the clinical failures of the Bundaberg Hospital for avoiding the same in future. The implications cover vast area and various aspect of a hospital in terms of the corporate governance and the prevention of the same. The prime focus of the implication is on the organization culture, which ensures the proper maintenance and execution of every system and process in the organization (Alvesson, 2016). Organizational culture is referred to the personality of the organization (www.publish.csiro.au., 2017). The organizational culture denotes the decision making process in the managerial levels. The poor decision making process of the administration of the Bundaberg Hospital shows the inefficiency of the individual in the management which leads to the employment of the incompetent and inappropriate staffs in the hospital.
The study on the inquiry of on the corporate failures of the Bundaberg Hospital marks a significant gap between the values hold by the staffs of the organization and the values need to be espoused. To eliminate this gap and ensure the reduction and prevention of the failures of the corporate governance, the study implies the value congruence model (Ren & Hamann, 2015). The ethical values of the organization also can influence the decision making procedures of the management in the organization. It is implicated to the manager in the administrative level of the Bundaberg Hospital to incorporate organizational ethics in the process of decision making for the establishment and maintenance of the nexus between the organizational and individual values. The incorporation of the ethical values is one of the vital element to ensure the healthy organizational culture (Sørensen & Torfing, 2016). It is suggested to the hospital to work on the organizational culture in order to ensure the proper application of individual and organizational values through the decision-making procedures.
Conclusion:
This can be conclude from the above discussion on the inquiry on the corporate governance failures of the Bundaberg Hospital due to the incompetency of Dr. Patel and the administrative negligence in registering and appointing him as the senior medical officer. The above report summarizes the list of clinical governance failures by the Bundaberg Hospital, which resulted in several deaths of the patients. The report further presents the implications of the inquiry of the Bundaberg Hospital and the decision making process of the management. The result of the study shows that the organizational culture and the individual values and ethics affect the management and the administration of the organization, which can harm the corporate governance of the organization.
Reference:
Alvesson, M. (Ed.). (2016). Organizational culture. Sage.
Brennan, N. M., & Flynn, M. A. (2013). Differentiating clinical governance, clinical management and clinical practice. Clinical Governance: An International Journal, 18(2), 114-131.
CSIRO PUBLISHING | Australian Health Review. (2017). Publish.csiro.au. Retrieved 5 September 2017, from https://www.publish.csiro.au/AH/issue/8492
Delaney, L. (2015). The challenges of an integrated governance process in healthcare. Clinical Governance: An International Journal, 20(2), 74-81.
Ren, T., & Hamann, D. J. (2015). Employee value congruence and job attitudes: the role of occupational status. Personnel Review, 44(4), 550-566.
Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (Eds.). (2016). Theories of democratic network governance. Springer.
Tricker, R. B., & Tricker, R. I. (2015). Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and practices. Oxford University Press, USA.
www.qphci.qld.gov.au. (2017). Retrieved 5 September 2017, from https://www.qphci.qld.gov.au/final_report/Final_Report.pdf
