How to Improve Organizational Structure in Home Health Care

Organizational structure is defined as a system of relationships that control, coordinate and motivate employees in order to achieve an organization’s goals. Developing and enhancing a strong organizational structure increase chances of being successful in providing home health care to the elderly.

List your goals of operating a home health care company. Those objectives might include offering ethical, friendly and professional business services to the elderly population, ensuring a good income to registered nurses or practitioners whom you employ and establishing a good image in the community.

Clarify with your staff as well as management what are the goals. Based on the company's size meet, privately with the owners or with a team of employees from all levels. Determine the type of organization structures — formal, informal, hierarchical or flat — that need to be established or improved upon. Home health agencies might easily lend themselves to a hierarchy through doctors, nurses and nurse assistants. Decide where home health care owners and their employees, such as marketing managers and accountants fit in the hierarchy.

Communicate your goals to all staff and make sure they understand how important it is to achieve these goals. Employees should understand how their position contributes to the larger picture and company goals.

Divide your organization into departments with sufficient employees in each area. Survey employees to determine their core competency and assign them to positions they would like to work, which gives your company the best chance for success. For example, a nurse who is adept at networking and promotion might be better suited to work in the marketing department. Likewise, you might invest in the formal education of a marketing assistant with dreams of becoming a nurse. Having people working in areas they are good at increases your organization’s effectiveness.

Specify the roles and responsibilities for each staff member. For example, the registered nurses are to report to a specific physician regarding patients. They are expected to be punctual and professional. Create a job description outlining the expectations and responsibilities of each position, and have each staff member sign that they understand their responsibilities.

Create individual goals, as well as organizational goals. The organizational goals must be divided into individual goals to be realistic. Motivate and empower your staff to attain individual goals, and let them know the success of the organization depends on them. Chances of achieving success increase when employees can help create their own goals that contribute to the company mission. Nurses might have goals associated with patient feedback, while doctors could have goals related to patient and nurse feedback.

Take responsibility for organizational mistakes either internal or public, and motivate your staff to do the same. Learn from those errors, discuss what went wrong and look toward future scenarios to avoid making the same mistakes.

Encourage your staff to get involved and take part in all the organizational activities. Allow them to voice their opinions. This establishes a more informal nature and enhances the importance of cooperation and teamwork.

Warning

Without proper organizational structure, chances that a company will prosper diminish.