Health Care Human Resources Management
Current Trends
Human resource management for healthcare system allows improvement of health care services. Despite the significance of human resource management in healthcare, current trends have a significant impact on HRM leading to poor decisions by the human resource manager. One of the current trends affecting Human Resource management in healthcare is technology. Technology evolves on a daily basis and each new day is a new technological day in health care. With the changing technology, all employees I healthcare sector should be equipped with the relevant skills and knowledge to use the technology. It is the role of HRM to ensure that all employees are trained on the usage of the new technology so that they can effectively use them in the care of patients. HRM is also forced to hire new employees with the skills required by the technology, which can be expensive to manage. The HRM in health care should ensure all practitioners are conversant with the systems so that they can employ it in the treatment of patients.
The other current trend is a shortage of nurses and physicians in the contemporary health care system. With the increased demand for quality and safe care, together with the demand for increased access to care, nurses and physicians are required in large number to meet such demands. Increased access to health insurance over the last few years has led to an increase in the number of patients that require access to care. Hence more physicians and nurses are required in the health care system. Most healthcare facilities are working towards meeting the required number of health professionals who will cater to the increased number of patients. By the year 2013, it is estimated that there will be a shortage of nurses by 900,000 while physicians will be less by 45,000. To bridge the gap, healthcare human resource management should come up with a strategy to obtain more nurses and physicians to reduce the figure of required health professionals. The only way will be hiring more Physicians Assistants and Nurse Practitioners who will cater for the increasing demand for care.
HR Partnership Opportunities
There are a variety of ways with which Human Resource can become more of a strategic partner in an organization and among them include taking time to identify a shortage of health professionals and understanding why there is a shortage. Since the Human Resource management understands the roles of nurses and physicians, they are the responsible partners to guide what can be done to increase the number of nurses in a healthcare organization. They can assist in determining the strategies to be employed that will help the organization achieve the required number of health professionals. They can suggest more training for current nurses and physicians so that they can meet the increasing demand for healthcare. They can also determine the need to hire more nurses and physicians so that they can reduce the gap of shortage of practitioners. As the individual who understand the roles of each healthcare practitioners, HR should partner with other health practitioners in understanding the needs for the healthcare professionals and establishing ways to meet the needs for a smooth running of a healthcare organization.
Human Resource Management
The model of human resource management that would suitably fit in a healthcare organization is the Warwick model. This model concentrates on five major elements which include macro environment forces, microenvironment forces, the content of the business strategy, HRM content as well as the content of human resource management. It puts into consideration all the human resource practices, the internal and external environment of the organization, processes within the organization as well as the business strategy employed in an organization. Since the primary goal of the acute care hospital is to expand its services to the growing community, this model will be the most suitable. This is because it covers the external and internal environment of the hospitals to understand what is required for successful operation of the hospital. During the expansion of a healthcare facility, understanding the internal and external environment together with all the processes help human resource managers to budget for all the requirements related to recruitment and hiring of additional professionals. Employees form part of the human resource management content, and they are factored in when this model is employed in the case of an acute care hospital. The model is commendable as it covers all the required services and practices that should happen before hospital services are extended to the larger community. Hiring more employees is included in this HRM model hence it will be the most suitable model in the case if extending services to the community.
Strategy for Effective Relationship
A strategy that HR can implement for them to develop a more effective relationship with employees, organization managers and well as executive include having a HR contact person in all departments within the organization. The contact person will exclusively deal with the processes and employees within that single department. The contact person will be responsible for all the job postings required for their department and any personnel issues arising in those departments. With a contact person in each department, it will be easy to communicate the departmental needs with the organization manager and executives. Also, the managers can have a person to communicate with on matters relating to each department. The employees also have someone to address their issues to when they arise in their department. The contact person acting as the department HR will have a better understanding of the issues arising in the department which will be communicated to the management and executives for a better solution. Ultimately, communication and productive relationships are enhanced between employees, HR, managers and executives as there is a certain flow of information within the organization.
Employment Law
The law that is likely to affect the hiring and selection process at the acute care hospital in my community is the Equal Employment Opportunity Law. The law will determine the selection and hiring process that should be employed in that acute care hospital. It requires that all applicants get equal treatment without any form of discrimination due to their gender, age, origin, sex, color, disability or any other unique feature that one possess. The law protects all individuals from being denied equal employment chance despite their unique features. The law is likely to affect the hiring and selection process of the acute care hospital, bearing the fact that more practitioners are required when the hospital will extend their services to the community. Human Resource managers will require hiring more nurses and physicians who will fill the new positions. They will keep in mind the requirements of the law during the hiring and selection of practitioners so that they are not liable for any form of discrimination. Due to this, HR will avoid any form of discrimination that can lead to filing a lawsuit.