Organizational Change and Healthcare Management

For several decades health care has been tied to the economy and with the current downturn we see continued efforts to control and reduce over-head costs. Health care organizations in their effort to become more efficient and address changes in the industry have altered their strategic business plans. Lee & Alexander (1999) researched organizational change in hospitals and their survival, in this paper I hope to discuss their findings and add other examples to validate their conclusions.

Core and Peripheral Changes with Regard to Hospital Re-organization

Found in the organizational structure and studied in hospital re-organization is the core and periphery both are varied systems that relate to the identity of the hospital and it’s ability to obtain resources (Lee & Alexander, 1999). Core changes relate to the mission and strategy such as ownership or type of service delivered. Peripheral changes on the other hand are not as clear-cut and some examples are changes in upper level management, restructuring and downsizing, and internal changes that do not affect the organizations identity.

Hospital Sustainability and Peripheral Changes

Organizational changes in any setting whether they are in the core or on the periphery must be planned and communicated prior to implementation. However in many cases the core changes which are larger in scale seem to have a much better change process than the peripheral changes used by Lee & Alexander (1999). Lee & Alexander (1999) point out three limitations within their study that may have influenced the outcomes: causal implications not of the findings were used vice definitive answers, the organizational changes used were not comprehensive, and the organizational change was the var...

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