Sustainability Initiatives In Kijabe Hospital

Sustainability Initiatives in Kijabe Hospital

Discuss about the Sustainability Initiatives in Kijabe Hospital for Sustainability.

Sustainability initiatives are steered in making developments in an organization. Sustainability is best described as meetings the current needs of an organization, without comprising on future needs of the organization. Sustainability involves a community or an organization approaching the challenges it is facing to revolutionize the way an organization's works and function (Waddell et al. 2017). Most of the sustainability initiatives adopted by organization always portray extreme changes and impacts on the people who are involved in the organization and the organization itself. With the new management, Kijabe hospital has taken different initiatives with the aim of achieving sustainability in the future.

They are various initiatives that Kijabe hospital adopted under the new management by Mary Muchendu. Her management saw a complete organizational change in various aspects of the hospital.First, there was the expansion of the operating theater, in which there was the implementation of a system of accurate inventory accounting, which was developed by the new Operating Theater manager. This involved a software, which was an electronic inventory tracking system. It contains a documentation of all the information necessary in the theater. This documented procedures in the organization ensured safety in the hospital. This initiative was aimed at increasing profitability in the hospital by reducing inefficiency and waste. With the financial constraints the organization was facing, this initiative was necessary. Secondly, there were was the development of a scrub-training program after the memorandum of understanding with various institutions to U.S. this initiative was genuine to the organization; since there was an increased need to have more surgeons in the hospital ( Newton and Bird 2010).

Thirdly, the management adopted a new initiative of establishing employee welfare activities. This initiative saw the turnover reduce to less than 8% in the year 2012. Fourthly, the management in Kijabe increased the hospital charges of the patients. This initiative was adopted to keep the hospital moving and clearing its bills. The fifth initiative taken up in Kijabe hospital was infrastructure expansion and repair. This involved a master plan to upgrade the hospital utilities that had shown signs of straining (Riviello, Letchford, Achieng and Newton  2011). This was reliable to the organization in that it aimed at providing systems and high-quality infrastructures, making Kijabe the best hospital among all. Lastly, the leadership team of the organization established the hybrid payment model initiative, offering patients premium services. This initiative was genuine in that, the hospital needed funds to pay the massive unsettled debts that had accumulated.

Initiatives Contribution

Expansion of the operating theater and the implementation of the inventory accounting system software had a positive outcome of social and human outcomes. First, it enables the efficiency of services to patients. This sustainability initiative enabled more patients to be treated than before and other operations to be arranged systematically if there were canceled. There was order in the operating theater, as the operating staff corporate in working on the scheduled cases. Due to the expansion of the operating theater, Kijabe hospital received more complex cases to deal with but the reduced pressure in getting cases done due to the large space in the theater (Bauer and Jenny 2013).However, despite the many positive outcomes of this initiative, it had some shortcomings to that touched on humans. There were rising costs that were because of the initiative. This lead to slow turnover in the beds, patients ready for discharge never got discharge due to lack of funds to clear bills. The lack of free beds led to delay in performance of daily cases. Thus some patients were not attended to in time.

The second initiative of developing scrub-training programs to the staff in the hospital had positive impacts on human outcomes. This is because there were more qualified surgeons in the hospital after the training and an increase in the number of surgeons. This lead to more human cases being handled by the doctors to success. The increase in the number of surgeons helped the organization, to deal with many patients within a short span of time. The human resources in this organization, benefit more because there is more cooperation and reduced workload when the workforce is increased.

The third initiative of establishing welfare activities had positive contributions, in that development activities increased the work morale, which reduced the turnover of the staff by less than 8% in 2012. In so doing, the patients benefit because there are more doctors to attend to them. This reduces the life mortality rates of the community around Kijabe hospital. The human resources in the hospital benefit more, as they have a sense of belonging to the organization when they get the opportunity to be trained in those overseas institutions. This initiative had a positive social impact to the staff in the hospital.

The fourth initiative, increasing the costs of treatment, had a positive impact on the management of the hospital in that, it was able to keep the hospital moving, and it was able to clear the debts that had accrued before. The fact that the hospital could manage its bills and get more donations have a positive impact on the entire organization. However, the additional medical costs had a negative outcome to humans, as the poor people could not seek medical help in Kijabe. This initiative did not influence well with the surrounding community. It made the hospital more expensive.

Transferability and Feasibility of these Initiatives in a different context

The fifth initiative, which was in the expansion of infrastructure and repair, had a positive contribution to the workforce in the organization. This is because, after the expansion, the hospital had the best electric systems, best power systems with a steady supply of power to the entire units in the organization. This made the workflow to be easy and efficient benefiting the staff in the operating theater. They did not have to deal with power frustrations in between operations or breakage of the materials used. The workforce in the organization felt that there were now working in the best health facility in the country.

The last initiative of the hybrid payment model development had quite a positive contribution to the organization. Over the years, Kijabe hospital had accumulated massive debts. With this premium payment by patients, the hospital was likely able to clear off its heavy debts. This would leave a positive social outcome among the human resources because they were finally able to clear the debts. However, there was a concern by some working staff on this initiative, where they felt that this initiative did not meet sustainability because it left the poor out of it. It had become expensive for the poor to now access the facilities and medical care to the high cost. Being a missionary hospital, some staff felt that the organization was not meeting sustainability.

The outcomes of these initiatives would vary when applied in other business contexts. For instance, the initiative of infrastructure expansion in a public sector, regarding a health facility, would not receive the funding from donors and well-wishers like in the case of a missionary health facility. This is because the government is expected to fund its processes. In the private sector, there may be a limitation of funds in doing the infrastructure expansion. The initiative of increasing the costs of payment would have a negative impact on a small private business sector, because, instead of increasing profitability to the organization, it would lead to losses and loss of customers. Clients would look for an alternative health facility. This is because for a small business, the percentage of customers turn out is low. These initiatives risk losing the potential and current customers in the business.  The involvement of welfare activities initiative would have positive outcomes for a small, large, and private or public sector in that this initiative seeks to increase the morale of the workforce thus reducing the workforce turnover. The initiative of offering scrub-training programs in overseas institutions would have both positive and negative impacts on the workforce of the public or large private sectors. The positive impact is that it would increase the employees’ sense of belonging to the business. However, in most public sectors, when employees are trained they demand an increase in the salaries, which would Influence the organization negatively (Laurie 2010).

Conclusion

From the above analysis of the sustainability initiatives in Kijabe hospital. It is clear that these initiatives have had both positive and adverse outcomes in the hospital. However, these initiatives have more positive contributions to the human resources in the organization than negative impacts. When applied in a different business context, these initiatives portray different outcomes, both positive and negative in the business. This outcome portrays that every business has unique initiatives that would impact positively on the business. Not all initiatives apply similarly to all the organizations. What works for one business may not apply to another business. Thus, every business management should design the sustainability initiatives that best work for them.

References

Bauer, G. F., & Jenny, G. J. (2013). Salutogenic organizations and change: the concepts behind organizational health intervention research. Dordrecht, Springer. https://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1317720.     

Cirp International Conference On Industrial Product Service Systems, Shimomura, Y., & Kimita, K. (2013). The philosopher's stone for sustainability: proceedings of the 4th CIRP International Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems, Tokyo, Japan, November 8th-9th, 2012. Berlin, Springer. https://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=1082607.

Global Burden of Disease Estimates by Country (2013). World Health Organization Health Statistics and Health Information Systems. https://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/estimates_country/en/index.html. Accessed July 13, 2013. 7

Laurie J. Mullins. (2010). Management and Organisational Behaviour. Pearson Education UK. https://www.myilibrary.com?id=278599.

Newton M, Bird P.( 2010). Impact of parallel anesthesia and surgical provider training in sub-Saharan Africa: a model for a resource-poor setting. World J Surg.34(3):445-452

Riviello ED, Letchford S, Achieng L, Newton MW.( 2011). Critical care in resource-poor settings: lessons learned and future directions. Crit Care Med. ;39(4):860-867.

Waddell, D., Creed, A., Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2017). Organizational change: development & transformation.