In an ever-changing business climate, the need for strategically oriented management increases, for the organization that is insensitive and unresponsive to its environment will not survive. The authors of this "Action Plan" examine the challenges facing the health industry and outline a series of actions for initiating strategic-driven management.

The financial plan describes the practice's financial strategy, projects the strategy's future effect on the practice, and establishes goals by which the practice's manager can measure subsequent performance. The act of putting together a financial plan is called the financial planning process. It is a process that consists of analyzing ...

Beginning in this issue, HMM Editorial Board member Dennis Green will explore five types of financial analysis materials managers are increasingly expected to perform. By the end of this series, HMM readers equipped with a personal computer and/or a financial calculator will have learned to make the following types of ...

The future of the healthcare financial management field looks bright. Those engaged in this field are expected to enjoy higher status, an enlarged role, higher salary, increased authority, and greater prestige. These gains will require increased knowledge and competence, as well as higher formal education, not only in the areas ...

The financial manager as "manager" of the organization's resources, manages both financial and human resources. In this interview, Mark J. Tager, MD, discusses how a manager can affect an employee's wellness on the job, or promote "working well". Wellness means both physical health and mental stamina. Employees at a high ...

The implementation of PPS is an attempt to create an economic incentive that will reward efficiency and penalize inefficiency. As a result, the healthcare industry is in the middle of a major transition. To determine the effect PPS has had upon the role and behavior of financial managers, a survey ...

Management as practiced in healthcare institutions is uniquely different from management in other American business endeavors. It is riddled with paradoxes that serve to restrain executive performance, create questions as to whom is in charge, divide employee and trustee loyalty, and traditionally results in difficult cost controls. This article examines ...

Consistent with HFMA's mission to assist its members in their ongoing professional development, this new column recognizes the increasing importance of the financial manager's management roles and responsibilities. As a member of the top management team and as a manager of a department, the healthcare financial manager is expected to ...

A detailed time and financial analysis of an academic general internal medicine unit was used to examine financial, educational, and research issues. The residents' outpatient service possessed the greatest patient visit and revenue capacity, but revenue recovery was limited by low productivity and collection rate. Outpatient revenue production could be ...

Considering whether or not to organize a preferred provider organization is a complex task. Managers will need to address many financial, legal, marketing, and organizational issues. In this case study, case-mix management information is used to address issues such as, types of patients to attract, businesses and insurance companies to ...

The self-assessment, goal-setting, and career-planning techniques of career management are discussed, and the organization's role in career management is discussed. Career management is a planned process, initiated and carried out by an individual with the assistance of others. Because work and nonwork activities are so interrelated, career and life management ...

Creativity and entrepreneurship are vital to any organization, but bureaucracy and organizational restrictions can discourage these important traits in a company's employees. Often, attitudes and the general gestalt within a group can be more important than policies or pronouncements by management, but translating intangibles into concrete results is a mystery ...

Some people are motivated to achieve in a manner consistent with the goals of their organization while others pursue individual goals. The attitudes people hold determine their behavior. Therefore, the manager is charged with creating an environment that fosters employee commitment to organizational goals. To create a climate for achievement, ...

Three weight loss competitions were held in business/industrial settings. One competition was between three banks; the other two were within industries, either between employee teams selected at random or between divisions of the industry. Attrition in the competitions was less than 1 per cent and weight loss averaged 5.5 kg. ...

A recent trend in many medical groups toward management aiding in "employee self-fulfillment" leads to the question, "Who is working for whom?" The author of this article firmly believes that a manager's expectations, encouragement, and support of his employees must be used to balance his own personal intelligence, knowledge, and ...

A structured, stepwise approach to employee discipline is described in which penalties increase in severity if problems are not corrected. Managers should apply all disciplinary measures consistently and should comply with hospital, union, or personnel department procedures where applicable. The steps of progressive discipline include oral counseling, written warning notices, ...

The success of an organization depends on its management and requires the correct applications of management principles relative to the aims of the organization. In order to manage, a structure will be set up which will depend not only on the objectives but also on the personnel within the organization. ...

This paper launches a seven-part series of articles on personnel management for hospital pharmacists. The series is designed to help hospital pharmacists who supervise other workers improve their skills in handling personnel matters. Methods of managing the pharmacy manager will be reviewed, including the establishment of goals and priorities, time ...

Is Corporate Planning a failure or a success? In this article David Hussey assesses the research which has been done on the planning process and concludes that Corporate Planning obviously has the potential to improve business performance but for many reasons this potential has not been realized. He then examines ...

Traditionally, strategic planners and human resource professionals have taken separate approaches in their attempts to improve organization functioning. As a result, strategic planners lack important information that affects the implementation of their plans and human resource managers have little impact on the strategic direction of their organizations. The University of ...

Section 704(a) protects employees who engage in activity aimed at remedying employment practices they believe to be unlawful. Such activity may take the form of participation in governmental investigations or proceedings, or expressing opposition to an employer's practices through internal complaints to management, circulating petitions among employees, directly challenging an ...

The process and practice of employee dismissal is an important and nagging task in personnel management in the human services. The employee has come to view one's status, following a probationary period, as permanent. Antidiscrimination laws, unionization, grievance rights, the cost of replacing and retraining, etc., increasingly make firing an ...

For many organizations facing high rates of employee turnover, strategies for increasing employee retention may not be practical because employees leave for reasons beyond the control of management or the costs of reducing turnover exceed the benefits to be derived. In this situation managers need to consider strategies that can ...

The financial manager can best fulfill his role and have the most beneficial effect on a facility planning project as an active member of the planning team from the onset of the project. In addition to representing a realistic financial planning perspective to the project's development, the financial manager can, ...

Many people are touting the need to take a strategic approach to human resources management--but this is more easily said than done, point out authors Lloyd Baird, associate professor of management at the School of Management and the Human Resources Policy Institute at Boston University; Ilan Meshoulam, personnel executive at ...

Managers in the United States, acting in anger, indignation, frustration, or even error, fire many capable employees every year. In some of these cases, the managers act unfairly. Perplexing questions arise when the story of an unjustified discharge catches the public's eye. Does an organization have an obligation to manage ...

In a productive organization, policies, programs, and job structures promote harmony in a racially diverse workforce and therefore utilize the talents and abilities of all its employees. But according to Ora D. Fant, vice-president and senior staff consultant with Goodmeasure, Inc., people of color are still often underutilized and isolated ...

Japanese companies have many characteristics common to innovative organizations. Missions and goals are clearly stated. These motivate the employee and make it easier to introduce innovation. They also encourage more of a sense of involvement with the organization. Japanese corporations have growth oriented and long-range goals. This derives from the ...

Nonprofit organizations chronically face financial difficulties. Now the situation has worsened because they are being squeezed between the uncertain economic climate and cutbacks in government support. While the managers of these institutions may think that they have already tried everything possible, more than ever they must be innovative in developing ...

The turbulent economic, political, and cultural forces of the 1980s have made the management of strategic change increasingly a way of life for organizations. To manage such change, managers will have to confront basic questions about the organization's technical, political, and cultural foundations. The technical questions include: What business(es) should ...

When faced with business problems, managers naturally make identifying the trouble their priority. Once that is done, at least half the job is over; finding solutions is just a matter of time. This hasn't been so, however, with the human resources problem: how to motivate employees. Sixty years ago, the ...

Haloperidol (Haldol) is useful in the management of acutely psychotic patients who present with excited behavior which threatens their safety and the safety of others. The use of haloperidol allows rapid control of psychotic behavior with minimal risk of hypotension and avoidance of the excessive sedation associated with other antipsychotics. ...

Anyone who has done any hiring at all can tell something about the difficulty in choosing people from a group of strangers. Hiring the right people is the most important step in managing an organization. Any hiring is important, but making the correct choice in management people is increasingly vital ...

An analysis of post-graduate medical training is utilized to explore political relationships between physician organizations, government bureaucrats and the medical professoriate in Scandinavia and West Germany. The 'enchambered' German medical profession differs from its Scandinavian counterparts largely in the number and political influence of private specialists, who have been politically ...

Despite company attempts to reduce employee turnover by offering attractive salaries and benefits, Kushell notes that attrition continues at an alarming rate. He states that more than one of every three employees will change jobs over the next five years, a transition that will take its toll on company morale ...

The hospital financial manager must play an increasingly larger role in the development of overall hospital policy. Human resources, as well as physical assets and capital must be considered, and the financial manager needs to establish programs that not only create a sound economic base, but that also show management's ...

"Voluntary Effort" hopes to duplicate its first year success by further reducing the annual rate of increase of hospital costs by another two percent. The financial manager will play a key role in the achievement of this goal. Mr. Shelton views the financial manager as part of the hospital management ...

Some theories of how management can motivate employees to perform effectively, and the application of these theories to hospital pharmacy practice, are discussed. Types of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards and how they can best be allocated to encourage greater productivity are described. Management must be consistent and credible in its ...

Financial management is something quite different from the "bean-counting" image of the traditional "finance man". It is proactive and is closely tied to the broader range of organizational strategy and environmental constraints. What are the interrelationships that must be recognized in order to make the transition to the central role ...

This 56-page report, written by Alison L. Hoare for the Rainforest Foundation, provides a review of macro-level forest zoning as a tool for forest management and land-use planning, in order to identify some of the lessons that can be learnt from experiences in Australia, Brazil, Cameroon and Indonesia. It is ...

This guide, aimed at healthcare professionals, provides information on adverse incidents and patient injuries that can occur as a result of using intravascular and epidural devices. Tips on how to avoid the incidents are outlined here. Published by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in January 2007.

This eight page document published online by the Iowa State University Extension in 2003, provides information on how organic farmers can control weeds. Information given includes sections on weed productivity and ecology, crop rotations, production practices, tactics for organic weed management, mechanical cultivation, propane flame burning, mulching and effects on ...

The introduction of devolved management structures within the NHS has exposed many clinical staff to the disciplines of financial management. This short article looks at the principles behind the preparation of budgets, the purpose of the income and expenditure account and the tools used to monitor expenditure at directorate and ...