This course is a "must attend" to supervisors and middle managers, those with or without formal training in management, and potential supervisors. Much of what appears in this course is applicable to all kinds of business organizations, but much of the material reflects the unique character of the healthcare organization. It covers a wide range of relevant and important topics.

On Completion of this course you should be able to:

• Identify the dimensions in which the healthcare manager's work environment is changing most significantly, and develop an awareness of the major factors contributing to the evolution of the manager's role.
• Review the principal paradigm shifts that are contributing to major change in the management and delivery of healthcare.
• Develop an awareness of the major changes brought by the advent of managed care and the impact of the Balanced Budget .
• Review the changes in the managerial role that have occurred in recent years, and offer some projections about future changes in how healthcare managers will approach their work.
• Appreciate the importance of flexibility and adaptability as significant determinants of managerial success.
• Explore supervision and management topics, as proven, hands-on, practical applications of both classic and current management principles in the healthcare setting.
• Build or reinforce your management skills and meet the never-ending challenges that one may face daily by applying strategies, techniques, and tools.
• Deals with the fundamentals of management from the unique context of the healthcare organization

The Setting

An Evolving Role in a Changing Environment

• Situation: Reinventing the Healthcare Organization
• The (Whirl)Winds of Change
• A Whole New Environment
• Organizational Priority Number One: The Bottom Line       
• Then Came Reengineering    
• Can We “Reinvent” The Hospital?
• The Managed Care “Solution”
• The Balanced Budget
• Healthcare Paradigms and Their Effects
• Marketing Health Care
• The Evolving Role of the Healthcare Manager
• Job Security in the New Environment
• Exercise: Responding to External Pressure

Health  Care:  How is it Different from “Industry”? 

• Situation: The Case of the Stubborn Employee, or, “It Isn’t in the Job Description”
• Process Versus Environment
• Identifying the Real Differences
• Healthcare Settings
• Implications for Management
• Returning to “The Stubborn Employee”
• A Word about Quality
• External Pressure: An Area of Continuing Concern
• Your Supervisory Approach
• Exercise: Where Does Your Department Fit?

The Nature of Supervision: health Care and everywhere

• Situation: Paid to Make Decisions?
• Born to Work or Watch?
• The Supervisor’s Two Hats
• The Peter Principle Revisited
• The Working Trap
• Nothing to Do?
• The Responsibilities of Healthcare Management
• The Nature of Supervision
• Truly Paid to Make Decisions?
• Questions for Review and Discussion
• Exercise: Your Two Hats

Management and Its Basic Functions

• Situation: A Tough Day for the New Manager
• Definitions, Titles, and Other Intangibles
• Introducing the Basic Management Functions
• Management Functions in Brief
• Planning
• Organizing
• Directing
• Coordinating
• Controlling
• The Management Functions in Action
• Emphasis
• Processes Versus People
• Questions for Review and Discussion
• Case: Balancing the Functions

The Supervisor and Self

Delegation and empowerment: Forming Some good habits

• Situation: Delegation for the Wrong Reasons, or “If You Want Something Done Right. ”
• Taken for Granted
• The Nature of Delegation
• What about “Empowerment”?
• Why Delegate?
• Failure to Delegate
• Looking Upward as well as Downward: The Personal Approach to Delegation      
• The Pattern: The Nuts and Bolts of Delegation
• “If You Want Something Done Right. . .”
• Authority and Responsibility
• Freedom to Fail
• Building the Habit
• Exercise: To Whom Should You Delegate?