Quality of Care and Aging in America

This paper will analyzes and describes how quality of care is affected by organizational culture, structure, governance and social responsibility. It will describe how the evaluation of the organizational structure affected decisions, what resources should be allocated to prevent ethical issues and what strategies are in place to prevent these issues.

There are many negative issues facing the health care organizations and it has deeply affected the country. The prime examples of these issues include the aging in America and the quality of care.The dying patients do not get the quality of care when they are seeking medical attention and this has been a major issue. There are many public hospitals that rely on the government to provide and allocate funds to facilitate medical services which many people are forced to seek these services. The health care sector, which is made up of both the private and public sector, provide medical services to mostly dying patients.

Research has shown that the public sector does not provide quality services to patients.Due to the lack of insurance coverage and the increase in medical cost, majority of the patient are still not able to afford medical services at the private hospitals. Organizational structure and governance Employees in the healthcare organizations have a set of attitudes, belief and values that they share. According to Moss and Dobson (2006), most health care organizations do not have strong organizational culture and this has influenced the performance of the employees.

This has also affected leadership in the organization and increased conflicts in the organization.Poor working conditions lead to poor organizational culture and structure which will in turn affect the way how the employees perform. A poor organizational culture can lead to stress and lower quality patient care that leads to poor quality of care and this makes the nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals perform poorly in adverse working conditions. The structure of an organization is very important because it determines the different roles and how all the departments perform.The organizational structure consists of a group of people that works together to achieve the oals that are implemented. As mentioned by Imhof & Kaskie (2008), communication is very important in the health care organizations that have complex organizational structures.

Most of the employees are not able to communicate clearly and this can lead to conflicts which block the employees from providing the quality care the patients need. Allocation of Resources Healthcare organizations do not contribute to the society’s welfare and impact the society positively therefore the relationship with the stakeholders is poor.With a poor relationship, this causes conflict between the patient and the doctor. Enough financial resources should be allocated to prevent quality of care issues and improve the quality of care to the patients. The moneys allocated can be used to purchase equipments that are beneficial to the care of the patients. There are many issues when it comes to the allocation of resources and should be cost effective to ensure the health benefits of those in the community that are being treated.

If the allocations of the resources are not done correctly it can affect the community.Human resources should allocate financial resources to eliminate the shortage of doctors and nurses which has affected the performance and productivity in the health care organization. Strategies to prevent ethical issues There are many strategies that can be implemented to the change the governance, structure and culture in the health care organization. The organization has to identify the organizational culture and change the social responsibility so that the employees are able to choose what culture they want.As stated by Morrison (2010), health care organization should encourage diversity training to help eliminate conflicts and poor communication in the organization As mentioned by health care reform to have impact on ethics (2010), the health care organizations should change their leadership style and organizational governance. They should embrace transformational leadership, but not transactional leadership.

Transformational leadership allows managers and workers in the organization to work together to achieve the goals set. This will in turn improve quality of care.Transactional leadership often times do not encourage managers and employees work towards achieving the goals. The health care organizations should change the organizational structure to study the objectives, mission and vision of the organization. The organizational chart can have many top positions and not enough workers so it should be studied to see if it is bad or good. After analyzing the chart, the health care managers should develop the chart and restructure the functions and implement the changes (Health care reform to have impact on ethics, 2010).

Recommendations to improve quality of care By understanding how to integrate and improve different types of long term care for the intent to reduce the burden of illness and improving the quality of life. As mentioned by AHRQ (2012), the following recommendations need to be in place: * Developing a cost-effective model of acute, preventive, chronic, rehabilitative, and long-term care delivery that will improve the functioning and health of the elderly. Improve or delay decline of functional status by assessing the outcomes and effectiveness of social, clinical, and organizational interventions. * Improving the ability to measure change across the levels of a diverse aging population and developing strategies.

* Understanding how best to coordinate the delivery of care across community-based social services The quality of care for older people is likely to have a substantial impact on their functional status and therefore improve their quality of lifeConclusion Organizational structure and culture is affected by the quality of care given to the patients. Quality of care is affected by organizational social responsibilities and governance. The deliveries of services are affected by poor leadership in the organization. Health care organizations should allocate financial and human resources to overcome the effects of poor services and this would change the social responsibility, governance, structure and organizational culture.