Handbook for the New Health Care Manager (J-B AHA Press)

513 Pages·2001·1.27 MB·English

by  Donald N. Lombardi

B u s i n e s s C u l i n a r y A r c h i t e c t u r e
C o m p u t e r G e n e r a l I n t e r e s t
C h i l d r e n L i f e S c i e n c e s B i o g r a p h y
A c c o u n t i n g F i n a n c e M a t h e m a t i c s
H i s t o r y S e l f - I m p r o v e m e n t H e a l t h
E n g i n e e r i n g G r a p h i c D e s i g n
A p p l i e d S c i e n c e s P s y c h o l o g y
I n t e r i o r D e s i g n B i o l o g y C h e m i s t r y
e
WILEY
B O O K
WILEY
JOSSEY-BASS
PFEIFFER
J.K.LASSER
CAPSTONE
WILEY-LISS
WILEY-VCH
WILEY-INTERSCIENCE

The Jossey-Bass/AHA Press Series translates
the latest ideas on health care management
into practical and actionable terms. Together,
Jossey-Bass and the American Hospital Association
offer these essential resources for the health care
leaders of today.
Handbook
for the New
Health Care
Manager
Practical Strategies
for the Real World
Second Edition
Donald N. Lombardi
Health Forum, Inc
An American Hospital Association Company
CHICAGO
Copyright © 2001 by Jossey-Bass Inc., 350 Sansome Street, San Francisco, California 94104.
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is a service mark of the American Hospital Association used under license
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lombardi, Donald N., 1956–
Handbook for the new health care manager : practical strategies
for the real world / Donald N. Lombardi.— 2nd ed.
p. ; cm. — (The Jossey-Bass/AHA press series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7879-5560-4 (alk. paper)
1. Health facilities—Personnel management—Handbooks, manuals,
etc. 2. Health services administration—Handbooks, manuals, etc.
[DNLM: 1. Health Facilities—organization &
administration—United States. 2. Delivery of Health
Care—organization & administration—United States. 3. Health
Facility Administrators—United States. 4. Organizational Case
Studies—United States. 5. Personnel Management—methods—United
States. WX 159 L842h 2001] I. Title. II. Series.
RA971.35 .L65 2001
362.1'068'3—dc21 2001000637
SECONDEDITION
PB Printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
The Author xv
Part One: Health Care Leadership Imperatives 1
1 Understanding and Undertaking the
Role of Health Care Manager 3
2 Making the Transition 29
3 Establishing a Progressive Work Environment 57
4 Managing the Nonplayers 87
5 Leading Through Conflict, Change, and Crisis 114
6 Orchestrating Progressive Team Action
and Individual Performance 136
7 Strategic Analysis and Decision Making 168
8 Exemplifying Leadership Presence and Guidance 195
9 Case Study: Carolina Hospital Student
Health Center 209
Part Two: Management Strategies 231
10 Encouraging Creativity 233
11 Selecting and Hiring Top Performers 256
12 Performance Evaluation 288
13 Negotiation Strategies 310
14 Balancing “Administrivia” and Progressive Action 335
15 Education and Development 357
16 Communication 380
v
vi CONTENTS
17 Case Study: Jersey Medical Center Community
Relations Office 403
Part Three: Resources 427
Appendix A: Analytical Planning and
Decision-Making Tools 429
Appendix B: Structured Selection
and Behavioral Interviewing System 441
Appendix C: Mentoring and Management
Guidesheets 457
Index 491
Preface
When the first edition of this book was written nearly a decade ago,
the principal intention of the text was to provide the new health
care manager with practical insights, strategies, and tools relative
to the most demanding tenets of this challenging role. The modi-
fier newin this case meant both the newly appointed leader as well
as the already experienced leader who was indeed operating in an
emergent environment of managed care, competition, and shrink-
ing resources. By providing field-proven approaches and readily
useful strategies in critical leadership and management areas, the
first edition was received well throughout the field and seemingly
fulfilled its overall objective.
The health care environment has changed dramatically over
the past ten years, and the essential accountabilities of the health
care manager at every level and of every experience range have
expanded widely. On any given day, the health care manager leads
and educates, administers and sometimes ministers, negotiates and
plans, all the while attending meetings, handling patient com-
plaints, and balancing (hopefully) the semblance of a personal life.
The quality of life for a health care manager can often be depen-
dent on the quality of the manager’s work life. It is for the enrich-
ment of this latter facet—quality of work life for the health care
manager—that this second edition is intended.
Readers of the first edition will recognize several topics and
subjects that were covered in the first book. These topics have been
revisited with an intent to update, enhance, and enrich the origi-
nal pretext of those subjects, as new material has been discovered
and innovative strategies have been validated through field use at
many of our health care organizational clients. In some cases, time-
honored maxims have been redefined; in all cases through this
book, new axioms and approaches are delineated in the interest
vii
viii PREFACE
of providing the reader with the most effective strategies available
in the essential responsibilities of a health care manager.
Additionally, several new chapters have been added and new
chapter sections have been introduced, addressing new critical
areas of responsibility for the health care manager. The need for
the health care manager to negotiate issues, introduce change
effectively, and handle the resistance and nonperformance of mar-
ginal staff performers are just a few of the new topic areas that this
second edition embraces and on which it seeks to provide realistic
counsel and elucidation. In a similar vein, the resource section of
the text and interspersed practicums contain numerous “how-to,”
“by-the-numbers” information for immediate utilization in essen-
tial areas such as behavioral interviewing, strategic planning, men-
toring, and conflict resolution.
This text is a practical guidebook for anyone who enjoys pas-
sionately the responsibilities and satisfaction of health care leader-
ship and management, which demands the dedication of the full
extent of one’s abilities toward achieving excellence in the interest
of aiding fellow community members who are in pain and need. It
is unlikely that there is a more value-driven profession existent.
Part One of the book, the Health Care Leadership Imperatives,
covers the essential issues of leadership intrinsic to the new health
care manager’s role. Many tomes have dissected and analyzed the
differences between management and leadership, but this text
claims to make no clear distinction between leadership and man-
agement. Rather, leadership heads the section of chapters and
accountabilities that are related to high-visibility roles and respon-
sibilities regarding crisis, change and character, while the second
section, on managementissues, delves into ongoing, yet important,
daily responsibilities.
In the leadership section, I begin with an overview and some
“first steps” in understanding and undertaking the role of health
care manager. Chapter One provides specific insight into the role
and its possibilities, its potentials, and avoidance of initial pit-
falls, concluding with a set of detailed “first moves.” Chapter Two
continues in the provision of guidance for making the transition
to management, with a focus on moving from a staff posi-
tion to that of supervisory responsibilities, and a candid discussion
PREFACE ix
of the nuances inherent with making this transition smoothly and
with the best likelihood of long-term success. The establishment
of a progressive work environment is fully explored in Chapter
Three with pragmatic exposition of how to set the right tone,
communication channels, and initial expectations to staff, peers,
and hierarchy. Chapter Four covers a topic that has been extremely
relevant in the past five years in health care management: the res-
olution, redirection, and in some cases removal of “nonplayers.”
This chapter defines the characteristics of the chronic poor per-
formers and dissenters; more importantly, it provides very detailed
instruction on minimizing the negative impact of the nonplayers
by employing a spectrum of logical tactics for resolution and per-
formance recalibration.
Relatedly, Chapter Five brings a fresh perspective on leading
through change, conflict, and crisis, which will likely be one of the
first organizational dynamics confronting the new health care man-
ager. Chapter Six gives the reader both the breadth of the practi-
cal theory of team building and team progressive action as well as
the depth of “real-world” approaches to commanding group action
and progress. The strategic planning and decision-making respon-
sibility of a health care leader is a skill that is a requisite for success
throughout the entirety of a practitioner’s career, and Chapter
Seven accordingly covers the topic and presents delineated
processes that will lead to the all-important product of positive out-
comes producing patient-beneficial action. Chapter Eight covers
leadership substance and style and presents exemplars that can be
customized comfortably to the natural tendencies of the reader in
their leadership roles. The leadership section concludes with a case
study in Chapter Nine that provides a practical application sum-
mary of the preceding chapters as well as the introduction of addi-
tional strategies relevant to leadership strategy.
The second part of the book, Management Strategies, is
founded on a triadic confluence of management strategies that
were validated in the field as effective from the first edition, new
strategies that I have implemented in several leading health care
organizations in my consulting practice over the past ten years,
and some of the practicum of the vaunted Seton Hall University
Master’s Degree Program in Strategic Communication and