What is a healthcare organization?

Healthcare organizations are entities that provide healthcare services such as primary care, surgery, diagnosis of diseases, and medical treatment to patients who are in need. Healthcare organizations or health systems provide healthcare benefits to people through clinics, hospitals, teaching and training institutions, and research institutions. The fundamental purpose of healthcare organizations is to offer healthcare services at a lower cost to meet the health needs of the people.

Features of healthcare organizations

Well informed and perceptive

Healthcare organizations should understand the current environment. Understanding environmental changes help healthcare organizations to improve services and maintain stability. Numerous environmental factors affecting healthcare organizations are social, political, information technology, and economic environment.

Information oriented

Healthcare organizations need to understand data analytics, converting data into information, and data reporting processes. Information orientation helps organizations to communicate with patients and helps in the decision-making process. Information technology helps healthcare organizations to handle patients’ information in an electronic version. Health systems should be information-oriented as it assists in health initiatives, evaluate clinical programs, and mitigate patient displacement.

Financial stability

Financial stability is one of the important features of healthcare organizations. Financial stability enables health systems to achieve the vision, mission, and goals of the organizations. Financial resources need to be well managed and organizations must ensure the availability of resources. Management of financial resources helps health systems to purchase medical supplies and provide better facilities to people.

Execution focused

Effective execution of strategy helps healthcare organizations to improve the efficiency of operations. Healthcare organizations should concentrate on the implementation process to deliver valuable services to society. Execution leadership of healthcare systems should set direction, plan, and execute strategies for developing the healthcare organization.

Patient-centered

The main purpose of a healthcare organization is to provide healthcare services to its patients. Healthcare systems should implement effective and efficient health plans to provide reliable care to patients. It should have a management team to communicate with patients for developing primary care and services.

Facilities provided by the healthcare organization

Healthcare organizations render various healthcare services to the public. The following are some of the facilities offered by healthcare organizations.

Birth centers

Birth centers are healthcare centers that provide a birth environment for healthy patients and newborns. Birth centers provide care and treatment for low-risk pregnancy and labor. So, birth centers are not equipped with equipment that is used in general hospitals for various surgeries. They only have tools associated with birth.

Blood banks

A blood bank is a center that gathers all groups of donated blood, stores the blood, and conserves blood for future use in blood transfusion. Blood banks help to store all groups of blood. When patients need blood, the particular blood group is sent to the particular hospital. People who want to donate blood can donate to a blood bank. Blood banks have effective management systems for blood donations and storage.

Hospitals

Hospitals are the biggest healthcare organizations that provide treatment for all types of diseases. Hospitals provide general and specialized healthcare services to patients. Hospitals classified their healthcare units into intensive care and non-intensive care units. Hospitals are bigger in size with huge staffs strength, doctors, physicians, therapists, specialists, and nurses. Some of the hospitals have the management of teaching institutions for students in the fields of medicine and surgery.

Clinics

Hospitals’ smallest forms are called clinics. It is an illness-diagnosing center. In clinics, outpatients get routine doctor checkups and medical treatment. Clinics cover a lot of health systems, but they are providing fewer healthcare services than hospitals. Most of the clinics are privately operated, run by one or more medical practitioners.

Radiology centers

A radiology center is a medical center that provides various diagnostic tools to scan diagnose at its early stage. Radiology enables physicians to look inside the body and understand patients’ problems. Doctors use radiology reports to conclude the disease of the patients. Radiology services include CT scans, MRI scans, X-rays, etc.

Rehabilitation centers

Rehabilitation centers help people who are in addiction to drugs or alcohol. In rehabilitation centers, various treatments are provided for addictions, depression, and mental health issues. It helps addicted people to restore their capabilities by providing medical treatment and therapies. These centers assist patients to decrease their disabilities and help them to live in healthy conditions.

Covid-19 and healthcare organizations

Covid-19 has a great impact on healthcare organizations and their systems. The covid-19 pandemic created challenges in providing healthcare benefits, interruption in medical resources supply, and shortage in financial resources. Many hospitals faced the problem of lack of beds for intensive care units, because of the high volume of affected people. Healthcare organizations are struggling to get enough protective equipment for their staff and patients. The important problem faced by healthcare organizations is that the covid-19 interrupted healthcare services. The main reason for disruption in healthcare services is the cancelation of treatment appointments, the decline in transport facilities, and the lack of staff. The leadership of healthcare leaders, healthcare organizations, and healthcare workers worked hard to assist the public in the pandemic period.

Context and Applications

This topic is significant in general studies, professional exams, and also for both undergraduate courses and postgraduate courses and competitive exams, especially for

• Bachelors in Healthcare Management
• Masters in Health Services Administration
• Masters in Health Care Management
• Masters in Financial Management

Practical Problems

Question 1: What is WHO?

1. World Health Operation
2. World Health Organization
3. Wild Health Organization

Answer: Option (b) is correct.

Explanation: WHO stands for World Health Organization. WHO promotes global wide health and provides safe and better health services. It encourages medical research and increases medicines and medical equipment. It focuses on world health issues.

Question 2: What are the features of a healthcare organization?

1. Financial stability
2. Patient-centric
3. All of the above

Answer: Option (c) is correct.

Explanation: Financial stability and patient-centric are the features of the healthcare organization. Information-oriented, adaptable, execution-focused, and perceptive are also some of the features of a healthcare organization. Financial stability enables healthcare organizations to improve their performance. Patient-centric is one of the purposes of health care entities. They have to communicate with patients to develop primary care.

Question 3: What are the facilities provided by the healthcare organization?

1. Hospitals
2. Blood center
3. All of the above

Answer: Option (c) is correct.

Explanation: Hospital, blood center, scanning center, birth center, and rehabilitation are the facilities provided by the healthcare organizations. Hospitals concentrate on a diagnosis of diseases and treatment, whereas blood centers focus on collecting and offering all groups of blood to needy people.

Question 4: Which one is the healthcare organization?

1. Rehabilitation center
2. Stores
3. Trading center

Answer: Option (a) is correct.

Explanation: Rehabilitation center is a healthcare organization. Rehabilitation centers help people who are in addiction to drugs or alcohol. It helps them to restore their capabilities by providing medical treatment and therapies.

Question 5: What are the impacts of covid-19 on healthcare organizations?

1. Shortage of equipment
2. Financial difficulty
3. All of the above

Answer: Option (c) is correct.

Explanation: Due to covid-19 healthcare industry facing the challenges of shortage of equipment and medical resources, financial difficulty, and mental depression. Lacking medical equipment supply influenced medical treatments and surgeries. Covid-19 interrupted the routine nature of healthcare organizations and workers.