Discussion

A set of principles and beliefs that describe effective organizational development interventions which posed future challenges to the practice and practitioners of organization development in health care.

i. Demonstrate the Relevance of the Subject to Strategic Performance A central debate in organization development is whether it should be focused only on quality-of-work-life issues or if performance and systems improvement issues should be of equal importance. The challenge of keeping up with demand, while addressing workforce shortages and tenuous financial conditions, strongly suggests that health care leaders and clinicians would label any organizational intervention that is not linked to strategy performance as ―irrelevant.‖ Thus, in the health care industry, organization development interventions must be linked clearly to issues of the organization‘s strategic performance—those things that help the organization achieve and sustain competitive advantage, such as cost position, clinical excellence, and market share. Organization development interventions must be seen as relevant and necessary to the life-and-death matters in operating a health care organization. Otherwise, organization development practitioners will not be credible and will not be invited to be part of the executive team where they can have a positive influence on the health of the organization. In some situations, where organization development practitioners had not convinced executives of their ability to add value to the organization, the practice of organization development became viewed as a frivolous luxury and did not survive the first round of budget cuts.

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ii. Demonstrate the Importance of Depth for Sustainability Health care‘s life-and death focus, coupled with the crisis of insufficient capacity (i.e., human, facility, and financial) to care for the increased patient demand could prompt interest in quick fixes or reactions rather than more-lasting systemic and holistic solutions.

organization development practitioners must be able to make a compelling case for attention to deeper systemic issues for sustainable change such as cultures built on trust and learning, rather than shorter term ―feel good‖ training and development. Often times, longer-term initiatives occur in parallel to the shorter-term activities that may seem more important to non-organizational development professionals.

iii. Demonstrate Competence The changes taking place within health care will require constant reevaluation and redefinition of competencies in a particular field or discipline. This will be as true for medical professionals and health care managers as for organization development practitioners. That may include enhanced knowledge and skill for leaders in intervention technologies, exposure to important business trends and regulatory issues, and practice in the principles of large-scale change. Leading health systems and hospitals are already providing skills and awareness training to managers in areas of leadership, strategy, restructuring clinical care, human resources issues, and change management.

iv. Facilitate Integration Among and between the Diverse Parts of the System A universal theme of the practice of organization development in health care today is integration among traditional and nontraditional stakeholder groups. For example, medical staffs, physician offices, community agencies, and insurance companies are typically untouched by organization development processes. Now, in addition to new opportunities for improving the health and performance within each of those groups, significant efforts are necessary to facilitate their integration to improve health care delivery and effectively deploy limited resources. A good example is in the practice of community building, which is currently under way among stakeholder groups such as medical practices, citizens, employers, and

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hospitals. The purpose of this intervention is to construct a common vision for what constitutes health for the entire community, across all health care providers.

organization development practitioners are uniquely qualified to assist in developing such a vision. Many have the skills and knowledge to work in complex settings with diverse stakeholders and they possess the technologies of large-group intervention to create such a process. Under what are these?

4.0 CONCLUSION

The health care industry offers unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Organization development practitioners can influence positive growth and development by linking their efforts to the strategies of the organization, demonstrating competence and integrity, and being able to facilitate integration of people and processes across traditional departmental and organizational boundaries. This opportunity comes with a challenge. At a time when each dollar and every resource in health care is being closely scrutinized, the inherent value of the organization development approach is being tested for validity.

Clients, under increasing pressure to demonstrate the benefit of key activities, will, in turn, subject organization development practitioners and their change interventions to the same testing. The practitioner must seek a balance between responsiveness and relevance while maintaining a commitment to the core values that have defined organizational development namely the equal importance of human needs and the creation of a work environment that allows growth, fulfillment, and performance. Ultimately, the ability of the organizational development practitioners to influence health care leaders and stakeholders has the potential to help health care to survive and thrive and this will positively affect individuals, communities, and societies.

5.0 SUMMARY

Dramatic changes in the health care industry are affecting the practice of organizational development. It shows how changes in the nature of the health care products and the way they are delivered, how technology is being adapted, and how health care is paid for are

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altering fundamentally the industry‘s structure and making it more difficult to identify the target of change. To be effective under these new conditions, organization development practitioners will be under considerable pressure to demonstrate their competence in areas such as culture, alliances and networks, and organization design. Change projects will likely be focused on integrating a diverse set of previously uncoordinated stakeholders. They will be more reactive than proactive; more solution oriented than people oriented.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENTS (TMAs)