Communication of Organizational Policies and Effective Health Services Management

Communication of Organizational Policies and Effective Health Services Management

The Leader’s Role in Communicating Organizational Policies

Healthcare leaders are explicitly designated to inform organizational policies by making them aware of the situation to follow and abide by (Jankelová & Joniaková, 2021; Restivo et al., 2022). Policies must be strongly framed in such a way that they can be understood by all staff. Their behaviour and policy consistency are what the leaders model. Consistent reinforcement via communication and training also plays a major role in this, besides fostering an environment where employees feel happy to ask questions or even raise their concerns. Staff must be sanctioned by leadership to support compliance (Jankelová & Joniaková, 2021; Restivo et al., 2022). Using a variety of communication channels and messages targeted to specific roles ensures policies are communicated to all levels of the organization.

Barriers to Effective Communication in the Workplace

Challenges to communication in healthcare organizations include organizational culture that might prevent the free flow of information due to power relations with healthcare professionals (Bahrain et al., 2023). The quick pace of work may cause important information to be overlooked. Thus, any language and cultural differences pose certain barriers if not considered. This is a major problem because critical messages may not be seen or perhaps they are buried under many other messages. This is mainly due to the lack of standardization of communication processes as well as fragmentation between the professions (Bahrain et al., 2023). Technology can also become a barrier because systems can be unstandardized and unreliable. Concerns of being punished for whistle-blowing may lower the staff’s ability to provide the leadership with vital information. To address these challenges, there is a need to encourage the workers to voice their concerns, offer skill enhancement, integrate formal practices, and design supportive working conditions.

Human Resources Policies Regarding Immoral Behaviors in the Workplace

Healthcare organizations need robust HR policies to address immoral and unethical behaviors, ensuring a professional and safe work environment. These policies ought to include ethical practices and prohibited conduct policies, including those that address ethics and misconduct such as sexual harassment, discrimination, and abuse (Deciu, 2022; Shahzad et al., 2023). Procedures regarding relationships and conflicts at work should be well stated, and measures taken to accepting gifts for effective impartiality. There should be reporting and investigating systems of ethical concerns, and such systems should have set disciplinary measures, including dismissal where it is warranted. Strong whistleblower protections encourage reporting unethical behavior. Organizations should continue to conduct consistent ethics training sessions to refresh these policies that emphasize ethical aspects. This makes them effective as compliance is checked periodically, and changes are made to match current trends.

Significance of Credentialing Healthcare Staff

The credentialing process for healthcare personnel plays a role in guaranteeing top-notch care and safeguarding patient well-being (Patel & Sharma, 2022). This procedure confirms that staff members have the education, training, and licensure for their positions, ensuring that their skills match their job requirements. Effective validation helps prevent deceit and false claims of qualifications, which could jeopardize patients’ safety and expose the organization to risks.

Credentialing also fulfills accreditation standards, showcasing the organization’s dedication to upholding care levels. This process fosters patient confidence by assuring them that their caregivers are competent and well-trained. A comprehensive validation process should involve verifying qualifications from sources, monitoring licenses and certifications regularly, and conducting re-validation to ensure sustained competence (Patel & Sharma, 2022). Organizations should establish protocols for addressing any deficiencies or concerns identified during the validation process to uphold safety as a priority.

Importance of Accreditation of Healthcare Facilities

Accreditation of healthcare facilities by recognized bodies such as The Joint Commission serves multiple important purposes. It shows that the organization is serious about quality improvement and patient safety (often, external evaluation rigor identifies areas for improvement) (Patel & Sharma, 2022). It ensures community faith and makes its reputation, even if it can lead the facility to receive more patients as well as able to acquire the best quality staff.

In many healthcare organizations, accreditation is necessary for reimbursement from some payers, so it is essential financially. Accreditation offers a full process for institutional policies and procedures, establishing best practices through all organizational functions. It provides a basis for comparison with other accredited organizations and promotes staff learning about best practices in the industry.

Despite requiring substantial investments of time and resources for both the pursuance and maintenance of accreditation, the benefits in quality, safety, and efficiency typically outweigh the costs (Patel & Sharma, 2022). Continuous habits of being accredited bring attention and awareness to some of the most important goals in healthcare delivery, thereby promoting a self-propagating ethos of always doing better.

Professional Ethics and How They Impact Employees on the Job

Most healthcare professionals are guided by specific codes of ethics for their respective disciplines, which have a huge impact on their day-to-day activities. Some of the core ethical principles include respect for patient autonomy and informed consent, beneficence (doing good) and non-maleficence (avoiding harm), justice, equitable access to care, and maintaining patient privacy and confidentiality. Such principles govern clinical decision-making, communication with patients and families, and interactions between colleagues.

Therefore, professional ethics stress the need to maintain competence through lifelong learning while upholding honesty and integrity in all professional relationships. These ethical standards enable health professionals to navigate complex situations and make patient-oriented choices. Organizations also have a responsibility to remind employees of the right professional ethics, besides having policies, offering periods of training, and encouraging employees to uphold high standards of ethical conduct. The importance of ethical issues shows that health facilities promoting them enhance patient quality, promote community trust, and improve the working environment of health facilities.

Responsibilities of the Chief Information Officer (CIO)

The role of the healthcare CIO is very important, with most of the tasks being assigned to him or her concerning information and technology. Their main responsibility is to manage and project the IT direction of the organization, ensuring that the technological capabilities meet as well as organizational requirements and business processes (CIO.GOV, 2019). The CIO bears the responsibility for the purchasing and deployment of clinical and business informatics solutions and for guaranteeing their dependability, security, and interfaces.

The CIO’s roles include managing IT budgets, vendor relationships, and staff, and driving innovation and digital transformation initiatives. Ensuring regulatory compliance, particularly with HIPAA regulations, is a critical aspect of the CIO’s responsibilities. Moreover, they have to foster data-driven decision-making across the organization by working with clinical and operational leaders to understand and meet their IT needs. The CIO leverages technology to improve patient experience, enhance care quality, and maximize operational efficiency (CIO.GOV, 2019). However, they must balance fostering innovation with maintaining robust security measures and regulatory compliance.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

HIPAA is a federal law that provides crucial data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information (CDC, 2024). Its key components include the Privacy Rule, which establishes national standards for protecting individuals’ medical records and personal health information, and the Security Rule, which sets standards for protecting electronically protected health information.

The Enforcement Rule specifies the procedure and remedial action for investigating complaints of HIPAA violations, whereas the Breach Notification Rule requires all affected individuals and the HHS to be notified when a breach involves unsecured protected health information. HIPAA compliance demands that these administrative, physical, and technical safeguards be in place to protect long-term disclosures of health information by healthcare organizations. This involves – among other things – training of staff, use of access controls and encryption, implementation of audit trails, as well as creating plans for handling breaches (CDC, 2024). The need for being HIPAA compliant is the adjacent benefit after data safety that extends beyond a legal ground, as it becomes an operational imperative to maintain trust and ensure sensitive health information and clinical data are not leaking.

Laws Guiding the Communication of Patient Information

Multiple laws dictate how patient information can be communicated, with the biggest one being HIPAA from a federal standpoint. HIPAA establishes the standard of when and how protected health information may be used and disclosed, enforcing a strictly defined national norm for patient privacy. Unlike other medical records, substance use disorder treatment records (2) have additional privacy protections under federal laws like 42 CFR Part 2, and the HITECH Act expanded HIPAA requirements and increased penalties for violations (CDC, 2024).

Federal regulations have long dictated patient privacy practices, but state privacy laws can impose additional requirements that healthcare organizations must be aware of and comply with. Further, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) protects genetic information from misuse, and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) ensures that no one but authorized personnel has access to student education records – this includes health records in educational settings.

Key principles in communicating patient information include obtaining proper patient authorization for disclosures, limiting shared information to the minimum necessary, and implementing processes to verify the identity of information requestors. Healthcare organizations must provide thorough training to staff on proper procedures and implement robust technical safeguards for electronic communications to ensure compliance with these various laws and regulations.

References

Bahrain, N. N. K., Sakrani, S. N. R., & Maidin, A. (2023). Communication Barriers in Work Environment: Understanding Impact and Challenges. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 13(11), 1489–1503. https://hrmars.com/index.php/IJARBSS/article/view/19498/Communication-Barriers-in-Work-Environment-Understanding-Impact-and-Challenges

CDC. (2024, May 13). Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Public Health Law. https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/php/resources/health-insurance-portability-and-accountability-act-of-1996-hipaa.html#:~:text=The%20Health%20Insurance%20Portability%20and

CIO.GOV. (2019). CIO RESPONSIBILITIES 01 SECTION. https://www.cio.gov/assets/files/Handbook-Roles-and-Responsibilities.pdf

Deciu, V. (2022). The Role of Human Resource in Ethics and Compliance Programs. Psychology, 13(02), 221–232. https://doi.org/10.4236/psych.2022.132012

Jankelová, N., & Joniaková, Z. (2021). Communication skills and transformational leadership style of first-line nurse managers about job satisfaction of nurses and moderators of this relationship. Healthcare, 9(3), 346. NCBI. https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9030346

Patel, R., & Sharma, S. (2022, October 24). Credentialing. Nih.gov; StatPearls Publishing. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519504/

Restivo, V., Minutolo, G., Battaglini, A., Carli, A., Capraro, M., Gaeta, M., Odone, A., Trucchi, C., Favaretti, C., Vitale, F., & Casuccio, A. (2022). Leadership Effectiveness in Healthcare Settings: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Cross-Sectional and Before–After Studies. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(17), 1–13. NCBI. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191710995

Shahzad, K., Hong, Y., Muller, A., Marco De Sisto, & Rizvi, F. (2023). An Investigation of the Relationship Between Ethics-Oriented HRM Systems, Moral Attentiveness, and Deviant Workplace Behavior. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-023-05513-x

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This Individual Project (IP) builds upon your work in Units 1, 2, and 3.

You have a meeting with the chief information officer (CIO) responsible for all communications, including information security and use. The CIO is also charged with meeting the board’s mandate of ensuring that all internal and external communications are delivered and secured, including patient information and guidelines for all staff.

Communication of Organizational Policies

After you met with the CIO, you request an informational analysis for the board to look over in the next meeting.

Your informational analysis will address the following issues:

1. The leader’s role in communicating organizational policies
2. Barriers to effective communication in the workplace
3. Human resources policies regarding immoral behaviors in the workplace
4. Significance of credentialing healthcare staff
5. Importance of accreditation of healthcare facilities
6. Professional ethics and how they impact employees on the job
7. Responsibilities of the CIO
8. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
9. Laws guiding the communication of patient information

Deliverable Requirements: The informational analysis should address the points above in at least 5 pages (title and reference pages are not counted in the page requirement) and cite 5 sources in APA format.