Banner Healthcare
Banner Health organization is among the biggest non-profit organization in the USA.
Its headquarters is at Phoenix, Arizona. It oversees about twenty nine healthcare facilities
including home care programs, family health clinics, and long-term healthcare facilities.
Banner Health care delivers its services to nine States in the Western and Mid-Western States
(Banner Health, 2015). This organization was established in 1999 through the merging of
Samaritan Health Systems and Lutheran Health systems. Currently, the organization has
employed about 47,000 people who deliver services to about 300,000 service users (Berlyl
Institute, n.d.). This healthcare organization caters for patient’s basic medical costs and
emergency healthcare costs. Additionally, the organization covers for specialized healthcare
services such as heart transplants, bone marrow transplants, and psychosocial rehabilitative
services. This non-profit organization also covers for life threatening healthcare
complications such as spinal injuries and Alzheimer disease. It is approximated that the total
worth of the organization as 3.1 billion dollars, with an annual return of 2.6 billion dollar
(Kuhn and Chuck, 2015).
Banner healthcare has focused its resources into delivery of safety and quality of care.
This entails establishing stringent measures that detect mistakes such as patient identification
errors, which impede delivery of quality services. The coordinated service improves the
organization performance and maintains organization’s integrity as well as improving patient
satisfaction (Banner Health, 2015). This has enabled the organization to identify functional
areas, which require improvement in order to sustain its performance. This has led to the
creation of cross-facility employees, whose role is to deliberate on ideas that ensure new
knowledge on organization is gathered and integrated within the organization standards
(Armbrister, 2012).
Healthcare organization case study
For example, for a very long time Banner health institution overlooked the
relationship between organization cultures and its leadership, and ways they influenced the
organization performances. The Banner Health organizations works together with other
multiple healthcare facilities across the Nation, which makes it challenging to identify a
standard policy that would ensure effective delivery of services in each of the healthcare
facilities across the miles (Armbrister, 2012). This is attributable to the fact that each of the
healthcare facility are in different geographical location, thus, the sociocultural factors differs
from one healthcare facility to another. Thus, applying a common method would lead into
more challenges. For this reason, the organization has adopted the integration of culture
driven policies that would help sustain the organizations success. The organization culture
plays an integral role in shaping the organizations performances (Berlyl Institute, n.d.). This
includes identification of management themes that put the interests of the service users as the
priority. The themes are as shown in the diagram 1.1 below.
.
The above diagram illustrates the model used at this organization to run its day –to-
day practices. The model comprises of four main themes; a) effective communication of the
organization vision, b) measurable accountability, c) developing effective leadership and d)
sustaining the success. The first theme addresses the role of effective communication, which
is one of the main hindrances of success in most of the institution. This model ensures that
there is effective communication between the employees and their leaders; thus, the
employees work to achieve the organization vision, mission and goals (Kuhn and Chuck,
2015).
The second theme discusses the issue of employee’s responsibility and
accountability. The leader’s roles are to ensure that the employee’s accountability is aligned
within the organization’s framework. This implies that the leaders acts as role models, and
Healthcare organization case study
are expected to exemplify the true measure of accountability within their organizations
(Armbrister, 2012). Banner Health has established solid metrics (patient’s satisfaction and
experiences) systems, which evaluates the accountability and success each healthcare facility.
The applications of score cards ensure that each employee is held accountable of their
services. The leaders are expected to guide and provide all the resources needed, and to
motivate the employees. This is to ensure that Bander’s health mission and vision are
articulated effectively (Berlyl Institute, n.d.).
The third theme involves recruitment process and staffing ratios. The banner health
has adopted the habit of recruiting leaders who are proactive and are likely to steer success.
This is because active leaders ensure that their employee’s skills are improved through
refresher courses and internal programs. This ensures that employees’ specific skills and
talents are improved, and new skills are developed through continuous learning. The
organization promotes teamwork. It is through the teamwork that cultural competencies are
developed which ensures that the employees respect each other’s values and beliefs which
reduces the incidences of office bickering (Kuhn and Chuck, 2015).
The last strategies used by the organization are by establishing measures that ensures
that there are sustainable developments. This is challenging as the healthcare industry is
dynamic. Therefore, the organization has recruited research employees whose work is to
identify the changes in market demands so that the organization can change its strategies to
align with the market demands. This increases their competitive advantages as the
organization manages to make changes according to the market demands. This ensures that
the organization explores new areas and discovers other opportunities that have not been
realized by their competitors. These processes sustain its development effectively (Berlyl
Institute, n.d.).
Healthcare organization case study
From this discussion, it is evident that these strategic measures are only effective if
articulated simultaneously. For example, integrating effective communication within the
organization ensures that each employee understands the organization’s visions and missions.
This also ensures that the employees understand their responsibilities within the organization
(Armbrister, 2012). Working with competent leaders ensures that the team members are
committed to achieving the organizations goals. The motivation is transmitted from the top
management to employees. The clarity of the organizations directives establishes a
foundation that ensures that the employees are held accountable of their actions (Banner
Health, 2015).
In summation, Banner Health has sustained their successes by improving the delivery
of services. The Banner Health performances have exceeded the internal targets and are
reported in the past years to have achieved stretch targets. The organizations financial
capacity has been improved such that it can survive any healthcare dynamic trend. Thus,
Banner Health is an established and efficient network concerned with improving the
community wellbeing (Armbrister, 2012).
Healthcare organization case study
References
Armbrister, M. (2012). Just what is Banner Health planning? Northern Colorado Business
Report 18(4)p2B-8B
Banner Health (2015). Banner Health Medtrack company profile. Database Business
complete.
Experience. Winter ,Vol 32, 2, p17-31