Nobody would argue over the fact that any workplace is full of multiple activities, factors, and relations. These processes presuppose a probability of conflict between activities, operations, and even entire systems. Conflict of systems is quite a widespread issue in contemporary business as this sphere involves multiple disciplines and perspectives. This evidence is also applicable to a field of healthcare because it works according to the same rules as any other business segment. The problem of conflict of systems is wrongly associated with organizational behavior and human resource management. In fact, conflict of systems at the workplace requires basic knowledge in strategic, change, and project management as well as awareness of recent trends in business and technology. Hence, the conflict of systems at the workplace is a problem, which has to primarily concern senior managers, chief executives, and any other team leaders.
Therefore, the following study presents an example of conflict of systems at the workplace in Central City Medical Group. The conflict occurred between the front desk agency and the department of information technologies. The paper presents a managerial approach to analysis and addressing of the issue, which is aligned with basic issues of organizational leadership. The following study presents a particular interest to senior team leaders and managers, as the majority of conflicts in systems at the workplace should be resolved throughout top-down approach. The discussion consists of a brief overview of the case study and gives an account of the most basic processes involved in the conflict of systems. Then, the paper discusses problematic areas of the organization in regard to the problem. This section tackles specific insights into resource and knowledge base of CCMG. Further, the paper outlines requirements, which should be met for resolving the conflict.
The process involved in the conflict of systems is an average procedure of receiving phone calls from the patients and recording of their medical data in the organization’s database. The company has a traditional data warehouse, so that records of phone calls and retrieval of the needed information are conducted manually. This is the main core of the problem, since numerous human errors and confusions occur on a regular basis. Moreover, too little attention is paid by senior management of CCMG. Thus, workers of the front desk, IT department, and regular patients of the healthcare organization are the key stakeholders as they participate in these processes. However, the conflict of systems involves also senior managers, who neglect the organizational workflow. They do not participate in the processes directly; however, the observed problems are resultants of their poor management. Overall, the case study presents a typical evidence of poor operational management and organizational orientation.
Discussion
Brief Overview
Central City Medical Group is experiencing problems with communication between the front desk and the department of information technologies. The healthcare organization specializes on consulting senior patients with chronic diseases, which is why the front desk receives calls with the patients' complaints regarding their health. Front desk manager keeps all the data and reports to IT department for recording. Central City Medial Group leads the database of patients with chronic diseases in order to preserve their health histories and trace related tendencies in their conditions. The number of such patients have grown within several years, so that front desk managers often fail to remember all information or confuse patients’ complaints. As a consequence, data recording becomes redundant while doctors and nurses have to trace medical histories manually. That caused a strong conflict between front desk and IT department, and this conflict of two agencies results in a disruption of the entire performance of CCMG.
The healthcare company is planning a major change in its organizational structure as well as reconsideration of its budget, but a conflict of systems was not recognized and addressed. Thus, the conflict of systems is unrevealed while two agencies keep arguing concerning the disruption of the performance. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the possibility of a human error is high in regard to both agencies. Overall, the conflict of systems in Central City Medical Group is a severe violation of ethics. First of all, the confusion of data related to health of the patients may result in inadequate diagnosis and further negligence of care. By the same token, irrelevant record of data can become a subject to HIPAA policy. The healthcare organization uses evidently weak means of communication between its departments so that the accountability of its performance leaves much to be desired. Moreover, shortcoming changes may worsen this conflict; thus, it is appropriate to address the issue as soon as possible.
Involved Processes
As it has become explicit, two major processes belong respectively to the front desk and the department of information technologies. The front desk receives calls from the organization’s patients and records any requests, complaints, etc. Preliminary recording is conducted manually. Then, the front desk manager reports the information to IT department in the Excel files. Recording of data via Excel is only one digital means of data keeping. Without any doubts, human errors occur quite often. Sometimes, the front desk manager gives an advice on the basis of already obtained data about the patient, so that he/she has to access the organization’s database. In such a way, this manager makes a mistake in data recording and then consults the same patient on the basis of the irrelevant information recorded previously. Nevertheless, the IT department initiates conflict of systems from its perspective in the same regard.
Furthermore, the department of information technologies receives Excel files and sends them to the organizational database. Hence, technical or human error can occur, which is why the probability of negligence is still high. It is informative to say that technical errors do not belong to a group of factors that the conflict of systems is comprised of. This statement can be justified with the fact that disasters in information technology are mitigated beforehand, while the conflicts of systems emerge instantly, and their mitigation is impossible. Consequently, manual amendment of stored files is a single evidence of human error in the IT department. In spite of the fact that the rates of human errors are lower within this agency, it also contributes to intensification of conflict. All in all, the conflict of systems presupposes preventive procedures, which address both major processes. However, the main sources of conflict should be indicated.
Problematic Areas
Resource
Once the organization is experiencing problems in communication, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the fact that the absence of a credible information system causes the conflict. To be more specific, Central City Medical Group should have implemented an integrated information system or unified communicable system in order to facilitate communication between the departments of the organization. What is more, the implementation of cloud database would simplify recording of patients’ data even though substantial costs are required for the technology. The core of the problem, however, is present in the absence of the authority regulating relations between the departments. As a consequence, the human resource manager does not establish a strong leadership within the organization. An evident tension between the departments was not addressed. Needless to say, both departments complained about problems in communication, but their concerns were neglected. In addition to this, lack of authority is reflected in a weak control of costs.
As it has been mentioned earlier, the organization is planning considerable changes in its layout. Thus, the adoption of a change budget is obligatory. Nevertheless, the healthcare company directed change expenditures towards aspects, which do not need profound intervention. In other words, the organization has identified irrelevant aspects of a change meanwhile such issue as information technology remains unaddressed. The personnel reacted to proclaimed changes quite negatively as the latter put new obstacles in daily operations. Since the situation concerning the conflict is going to worsen, the resentments of the workers of both departments are more apparent. Again, the absence of authoritative observation of ethical and operational environment contributes much to development of the conflict in that regard. On a separate note, wrong scoping of change strategy produces its impacts indirectly on the allocation of resources and costs. This evidence is quite typical of organizations, which have gaps in that area of expertise.
Knowledge
Central City Medical Group failed to comprehend the knowledge about performance life-cycle and standardization. The main cause of this issue is based on a weak institutionalization of the organization. Liberal approaches to organizational structure are effective and widespread, but any company still has to follow a pattern of overall performance. It is becoming abundantly clear that lack of expertise in this area would always result in the absence of operational flowchart demonstrating operational relations between departments. Likewise, the absence of standards is also an evident gap in the company’s knowledge. The company performs on the basis of the expertise of its human resources. Doctors and nurses of the organization are experienced professionals, but they do not have any knowledge in regard to management of the overall performance of CCMG. Thus, lack of knowledge results in the conflict of systems at the workplace.
Likewise, lack of knowledge in that area causes absence of internal policies, which can regulate the organization's performance. In fact, communication ethics and policy are not deployed within the working environment of Central City Medical Group. To the greatest extent, the absence of knowledge in this aspect can be explained with an infrequent participation of the healthcare company in the exchange of best practice, benchmarking, and governmental tenders. The organization does not invest in knowledge management because of inappropriate cost allocation and orientation towards redundant changes. At any rate, Central City Medical Group is experiencing the conflict of systems between the front desk and the information technologies department because of factors that are related to the larger context of the organization’s management. In consequence, these issues can be addressed at the highest levels of management as long as the healthcare company is likely to develop similar conflicts of systems in other areas of its performance.
Requirements for Addressing The Conflict
First of all, the conflict has to be recognized by senior managers of the organization. As soon as the healthcare company’s leaders are aware of the problem, they will be recommended to initiate a top-down incentive project concerning conflict resolution and the amendment of existing patterns of communication between departments. These activities require a strong leadership, which is why an authoritative but top-down approach is recommended. Central City Medical Group has to initiate considerable changes at the highest level of management. However, an average daily performance of both departments should be also taken into account. Consequently, the organization is advised to design a flowchart for all its departments and related operations within the company. That will help to localize connections between departments and make the best judgement of the conflict of systems. The created flowchart should represent a map of standardized activities within Central City Medical Group.
Regarding that, the organization needs to implement unified communication system, so that telephone calls, database, email, and other means of corporate communication will be fully functional. In such a way, voice calls can be recorded, and the retrieval of necessary data will become considerably easier. Communication processes between the CCMG front desk and the IT department will be facilitated, and probability of human error will accordingly become lower. This technology, however, presupposes investing substantial costs, which is why this point should also be considered. To return to the subject of change strategy of Central City Medical Group, it is needed to reconsider allocation of the expenditures and invest in establishment of WAN network. Such network will enable the patients to communicate with the healthcare organizations without any barriers. One may argue that senior people, who are the target patients of CCMG, are mainly unable to use such technologies. For that purpose, the implementation of unified communication is needed so that the patients can reach the front desk via standard telephone line.
All in all, Central City Medical Group is recommended to involve its senior managers in solving the problem as long as the conflict of systems between the front desk and the IT department is not a single evidence of such conflicts within the organization. Thus, the organization may need to change its orientation towards internal governance rather than its organizational structure. Daily operations themselves are appropriately scoped, but they do not undergo any standardization, which is why the design of organizational standards of practice, communication, etc. is evidently needed. Henceforth, the healthcare organization is advised to invest in facilitating the communication between partners. Taking into account the case of the systems’ conflict between the front desk and the IT department, the deployment of unified communications and customer-accessed WAN network will solve the conflict and simplify the process of communication.
To be more specific, the organization should take a top-down approach to solving the conflict and reconsidering the changes. The first step here is the initiation of senior management incentive project, which will incorporate unified communications and WAN network. The second step is its factual implementation; and the third step is acquisition of the project deliverables. Once the initiative is aimed at facilitation of the workforce’s communication, the main resource for this initiative is company's expenditures on installation of technology as well as the personnel,. It is informative to mention that CCMG is recommended to consider such changes from the perspective of human resource management because the workers are usually unwilling to change. The solution is expected to deliver a simplified communication between the front desk and the IT department as well as among any other agencies within CCMG. In the broadest context, the solution will cause more relevant change in the organizational orientation of the healthcare company.
Eventually, Central City Medical Group is planning to gather a regular board meeting; thus, one of the managers will be informed about the conflict of systems. The problem relates to mismanagement at the highest level of governance, so the average workers are unable to solve the problem on their own. Furthermore, many workers do not recognize a serious problem, which is why drastic changes regarding organization of daily operations may be also needed. The ideal control of systems is based on development and regular update of operational flowcharts, standards, and policies. The investments in knowledge management, technologies, and exchange of best practices will keep the organization to be on the safe side. Conflicts of systems, however, emerge in any companies because of human error and externally unexpected circumstances. Consequently, ideal conflict of systems mitigation requires standardization of actions, communication, and decision-making at the workplace.
Read more interesting info https://best-writing-service.net/article-writing-format-guide.html