Course Project Introduction
The “Organization Design for the Breast Service at Easter Medical Center” case offers a summative opportunity to examine a health care organization that is struggling with true-life leadership challenges some of which you might encounter at one time or another in your professional career as a health care leader or as a member of a health care team. Easter Medical Center, the Department of Surgery, and the breast service are facing multiple challenges in areas we have collectively studied throughout this course. The case offers your consulting group the chance to advise a hospital board by systematically integrating the leadership and human resources concepts, principles, and practices you have learned throughout the course.
Course Project Objectives
• Describe the situation for the breast service at Easter Medical Center (EMC).
• Identify main problems and issues with proposed causes for breast service at EMC.
• Analyze problems with the organizational design, managerial controls, decision making, professional integration, adaptation, and accountability for the breast service at EMC.
• Propose recommendations and evidence-based management practices in response to the problems identified.
Reading
del Monaco, C. & Volcker, J.P. (2004). Organization design for the breast service at Easter Medical Center. In A. R. Kovner and D. Neuhauser (Eds.), Health services management: Readings, cases, and commentary (8th ed., pp. 248-252). Chicago: Health Administration Press.
Project Instructions
Point Value: 230 Points
This is a group project that you will complete with your Easter Groups (Easter Group X). You will be placed in groups of three or four. The project spans Weeks Four through Six.
Your group has been engaged as a consulting group by the Easter Medical Center (EMC) to advise the board about how to ensure the breast service supports the EMC vision. As we have progressed through the course, you have studied various topics that will inform your analysis of the breast service and your recommendations to the board. These topics include:
• Organizational design.
• Managerial controls.
• Evidence-based management/decision- making.
• Professional integration/health care professionals.
• Adaptability.
• Accountability.
For this group assignment, the final deliverable will be a consulting report expressing your recommendations with supporting rationale appropriate to the EMC lay hospital board. It must be well organized and concise, but provide sufficient rationale for recommended actions. The focus of the report should be on leadership and human resources issues.
Each recommendation must be supported by rationale for its need. In addition, the anticipated impact and potential unanticipated impacts for each recommendation should be outlined. Finally, for each recommendation, one outside professional or peer-reviewed source must be included to support the group’s rationale.
The consulting report must contain appropriate citations. Easter Medical Center is located in a university town so many board members are academics and always ask for documentation, frequently doing extra reading on their own. You will undoubtedly need to consult other sources beyond the textbook and readings provided in this course. Please cite the sources you consult, including your textbook, so that we know what resources you have discovered and consulted. Be sure to use APA style.
Your consulting report should demonstrate your familiarity and understanding of the various leadership and human resources concepts studied in this course.
Components of the final consulting report will include:
• Cover Page
• Abstract Page
• Body of the Consulting Report
o Brief description of the situation (remember the audience!)
o Description of five main problems/issues with proposed causes
o Analysis of each problem or issue with recommendations and supporting rationale
Your analysis and recommendations should attend to at least course content topics listed below. The topics can be covered in any order, but make sure you use the following subheadings so that each clearly stands out in your report:
Organizational design
Managerial controls
Evidence-based management/decision-making
Professional integration/health care professionals
Adaptability
Accountability
• Reference Page
This Week
• Read the case, “Organizational Design for Breast Service at Easter Medical Center.”
• Review the Easter Breast Service course project.
Sample Solution
