Strategies Hospital Administrators Utilize to Optimize Patient Services

• Main Author: Njoku, Vicente
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: ScholarWorks 2019
• Subjects: Evidence-based practice; Health care Innovation; Health care lean methodolgy; Health care triple-aim; Patient care optimization; Public health; Business; Health and Medical Administration; Public Health Education and Promotion
• Online Access: https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/7496; https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=8768&context=dissertations

Hospital administrators face challenges that arise from environmental factors or psychosocial factors, and lack resources to deliver valuable medical services to stakeholders, including patients and employees. A multicase study served to explore experiences and gain a broader perspective of hospital administrators' use of strategies to optimize patient services. Ten hospital administrators from acute care hospitals in Nevada and California were purposefully selected from the population of hospital managers with a minimum of 2 years of documented experience in successfully implementing management strategies to improve patient services. The conceptual framework was Drucker's management theory. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 10 administrators, from the participants' archival documents, and from hospital archives. Interview transcripts and data from multiple hospital locations were coded and analyzed using methodological triangulation. Five themes identified from data analysis were triple-aim strategy, evidence-based practice, lean methodology, public health strategy, and innovation strategy. Implementing the appropriate strategy in each hospital setting might facilitate identification of elements that are lacking, mitigating, or slowing down the hospital improvement process. The findings of this study might contribute to positive social change by creating platforms for sharing information among patients and providers, payors, pharmacies, and policymakers.