Organizational Culture

There are two hospitals in St. Charles County, one existed for twenty years and the other is a brand new facility. The corporate strategic plan is to merge the hospitals to allow St. Charles County residents options for great medical care and ultimately gain market share away from the competition.

Although the plan has merit, the blending of cultures of the hospitals are reliant on the strategic implementation of the plan lacked the proper operational planning. The SWOT of the two hospitals does not culturally align. The culture of the established hospital is solely based around the affiliation to the reputation of the corporation, while the newer hospital was built for the sole purpose of creating a culture that delivers a brand new patient centered hospital experience. In the operational planning stages it can only be speculated that the original strategic plan was not to merge the hospitals with the knowledge of the major disconnect between the two hospital’s cultures.

The established hospital delivers great clinical care because they make their hiring decisions based on the applicants’ experience. There is a brief telephone interview with Human Resources and then with the hiring manager. There are no established interview guides or even standard interview questions posed to the applicants. Recently the hospital leadership team introduces the Studer Model service priorities to the hospital employees. The implementation of the Studer Model began with all new hires and delivered during new employee orientation, however, not much was communicated to the current employees. Whenever a company changes focus, the existing employees can find it difficult to embrace the new way to conduct business, especially if they were not engaged or involved in the beginning stages. The employees can develop the attitude that things are forced upon them and the delivery to them is from the leadership team down. The employees may even resist the change with the mindset that new leaders have new ideas, so when this leadership team leaves so will this cultural change. The Studer Model is a culture that is adapted by many companies and is similar in many ways to the Disney Model, which are the guiding principles of the brand new hospital. The one big difference that has caused problems with the merger that could have been recognized if the SWOT was done correctly is Studer Model lacks the involvement of all employees regardless of their position in the organization. It is a top down delivery method and that is totally opposite of the Disney Model philosophy that every employee plays an important role in creating the experiences of their customers and co-workers.

Thus, the new hospital adopted the behavioral interview process with standardized guides with in person Human Resource interview, hiring manager interview and a panel of peers’ interview every applicant. The applicants view a short video delivered by the President to learn about the patient centered care and the importance of understanding this culture. With the strength of making great hires, the opportunity is differentiating the customers experience from other hospitals, and with the weakness of dismantling the hiring process relates to the threat of losing great new hires to the competition. Another element of the culture is employees are empowered with a Service Recovery Program so they can take immediate action to rectify a situation if a customer expresses dissatisfaction. The program provides the customers with choices of gift cards to acknowledge the employee’s empathy and compassion for their unfortunate circumstance. This new hospital has received the top hospital recognition awards with the highest patient satisfaction scores every year since it opened. To say that the employees are passionate about embracing this culture it an understatement. The employees are not just hired based on their expertise, but they must possess compassion because that is a skill that has yet to be taught. When all levels of the organization demonstrate their compassion for others it is sustainable and differentiates that organization from their competitors, including the hospital it is merging with.