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Biomedical subjects

D H Freed

Publications and source records attributed to D H Freed.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

One more time: please fire marginal employees.

Managers should not second-guess themselves when contemplating termination of marginal employees, i.e., those with sustained poor attitudes or performances. Poor performers should not be allowed to disadvantage an otherwise successful team; management ought not to retain someone it cannot fully support; and termination may be interpersonally excruciating but is organizationally very invigorating. This article identifies ten reasons why marginal employees prevail and are not dealt with in organizations. Acknowledging these barriers is a valuable first step in moving from analysis to synthesis as concerns removing them in the future.

Employee Performance Appraisal↗
PubMed2000

How to get things done. Period.

In a competitive environment, hospitals are finding it more important than ever to satisfy their patients, support themselves, and improve their performances. However, experience repeatedly confirms that articulating these strategies is much simpler than actually executing them. While a variety of reasons can be offered, the fact is that effective execution--getting things done--is a strategic differential that brings about significant competitive advantage. This article examines a number of proven best practices for overcoming resistance and actually getting things done. Doing so requires more assumption of risk, but it is both personally and organizationally very invigorating and rewarding.

Efficiency, Organizational↗
PubMed2000

One more time: please fire marginal employees.

Managers should not second-guess themselves when contemplating termination of marginal employees, i.e., those with sustained poor attitudes or performances. Poor performers should not be allowed to disadvantage an otherwise successful team; management ought not to retain someone it cannot fully support; and termination may be interpersonally excruciating but is organizationally very invigorating. This article identifies ten reasons why marginal employees prevail and are not dealt with in organizations. Acknowledging these barriers is a valuable first step in moving from analysis to synthesis as concerns removing them in the future.

Employee Discipline↗
PubMed1999

Fifty-two effective, inexpensive ways to reward and recognize hospital employees.

Effective reward and recognition programs are important in order to retain well qualified hospital employees and actively engage them in satisfying patients, managing scarce resources, and improving performance. The rewards and recognition bestowed may be modest in scale but must be symbolic of genuine caring and appreciation by management. This article outlines a number of reward and recognition tactics that can be used singly or in combination to begin demonstrating management's commitment to improving employee satisfaction.

Employee Incentive Plans↗
PubMed1999

What your hospital's CEO is thinking about.

The contemporary hospital CEO is concerned about much more than just "big picture" environmental scanning and strategic planning. In fact, he or she is concerned with a host of problems and opportunities whose common denominator involves reconciling contradictions between, for example, mission and margin, risk and return, consensus and momentum, and strategy and opportunism. In this context, the hospital CEO is concerned especially about basic tasks related to focusing the organization, simplifying processes, creating a sense of urgency, and communicating effectively. These objectives often are elusive, yet the CEO ultimately is uniquely accountable for their accomplishment.

Chief Executive Officers, Hospital↗
PubMed1998

Please don't shoot me: I'm only the change agent.

The change agent is a necessity rather than an option for a hospital's future success in the volatile managed care environment. While his or her message may be unpopular and tactics unconventional, the change agent had the extraordinary confidence and capacity to move an organization from analysis to synthesis. This article describes the change agent's makeup and method of operation as well as the 10 most potent tools and insights for effecting sustainable change.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed1997

Creating a table of authorization to empower staff.

Empowering frontline managers to make and accept accountability for decisions poses a significant challenge, especially for integrated delivery systems (IDSs) where multiple organizational layers and complex management structures can create confusion about roles and responsibilities. Without a clear set of guidelines for independent action, attempts to achieve staff empowerment are likely to fail. To achieve its empowerment goals, Overlook Hospital in Summit, New Jersey, a part of the Atlantic Health System, a New Jersey-based IDS, developed the "Table of Authorization for the Commitment or Expenditure of the System's Physical or Financial Resources." This management tool clarifies the degree to which frontline managers may make decisions and initiate actions without the need for senior management or board approval. The table provides an effective means of promoting a uniform basis for decision making across the system and encourages improved customer service vital in competitive markets.

Capital Expenditures↗
PubMed1996

The role of the human resources department in hospital reengineering.

The ¿people part¿ of reengineering is the most difficult to implement or even predict. In this context, active involvement by the Human Resources (HR) Department is a necessity, not an option, for the success of reengineering initiatives. Reengineering requires a changed environment and methods that HR must facilitate; creates extraordinary demands for leadership and communication, which HR is uniquely qualified to support; and represents an extraordinary opportunity for HR to reinvent its own processes and create a sustained competitive advantage for the organization. Exploiting these opportunities will require HR to proactively engage the organization.

Communication↗
PubMed1995

From chaos to order: health care quality in context.

Quality underlies diverse efforts to repair the troubled health care system, yet the many abstract definitions offered are not particularly useful. A better approach is to evaluate quality in an applied or situational context. This article offers six propositions that establish such a context and explain why the current health care environment is so volatile. Some parallels between health care and the emerging field of science called chaos theory are drawn as a possible future basis for recognizing order in the health care system.

Delivery of Health Care↗
PubMed1994

Centralized administrative services management.

Virtually every hospital has imposed guidelines or controls on one or more administrative service expenses. However, the actual deployment of such strategies is often voluntary, decentralized, disjointed and episodic. An alternative approach is to cluster administrative elements across hospital departments and make them the responsibility of a dedicated manager. This approach treats administrative services as an organizing principle with uniform, predictable standards of service and cost. Customer requirements for products and services are met without the need for them to physically manage that process. Materiel managers can demonstrate a leadership role by applying their professionalism and know-how to a set of products and services traditionally ignored or dealt with in an uncoordinated manner. While some initial resistance can be expected as traditional barriers are disassembled, the results should be very rewarding for the hospital and materiel manager alike.

Capital Expenditures↗
PubMed1994

Toward redefining expectations about medical technology.

Society expresses dissatisfaction about the high cost and low efficacy of medical technology yet continues to invest heavily in it. This apparent contradiction is illuminated by examining societal expectations about the nature and performance of medical technology. Expectations must be aligned with health prevention rather than intervention in the future.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1993

An investment perspective for hospital materiel managers.

Materiel managers are making investments every time they authorize capital, supply, or personnel requisitions on behalf of their departments or organizations. While not as formal as external investments in securities or the like, internal investments are even more critical to the organization's success and carry the same fiduciary obligations. Generating an acceptable return is a necessity rather than an option as concerns internal investments; the same formal analysis that is applied to external investments should be extended to internal ones as well. Adopting an investment perspective is a critical first step in seeing internal initiatives as investments and obtaining an appropriate return.

Capital Expenditures↗
PubMed1993

Beyond diversity.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Ethnicity↗
PubMed1993

Options in information systems outsourcing.

Virtually any of the activities required to operate a hospital's information systems department can be outsourced, that is, performed by an outside firm. Outsourcing can be used as a business strategy to optimize resources to attain financial, tactical and strategic goals. Benefits include a smaller IS staff, reduced overhead and cost avoidance particularly in the area of capital equipment purchasing. However, outsourcing IS is not without risks and is not a panacea. It may even bring on its own challenges, particularly in managing expectations of in-house personnel. Risks include loss of control, vendors with little or no experience with the hospital's operations and culture and dependence on vendors when in-house personnel cannot adapt. IS outsourcing hasn't got as much of a track record in health care as in other industries, but with the growing cost and complexity of hospital IS operations, outsourcing seems inevitable.

Contract Services↗