Table of Contents

2000
 

Volume Five, Number 1
    

Symposium in Progress

Organization Development In Health Care

R. Wayne Boss, Editor

1. The Dynamics of Strategic Change in Hospitals: Managed Care Strategies, Organization Design, and Performance
   Christopher G. Worley, Ph.D, Thomas G. Cummings, Ph.D., & Foster W. Mobley, M.B.A.

   The organizational changes and performance consequences of California hospitals pursuing managed care strategies between 1986-87 and 1991-92 are examined. The results suggest that hospitals made substantive changes in their strategic orientations. The primary source of change, however, was prior levels of commitment. High commitment to managed care strategies in time 1 produced further commitments in time 2, and support a momentum model of strategic adaptation. The performance consequences of strategic change are a complex function of time, direct, and indirect influences.
      

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2. Implementing Participation Strategies in Hospitals: Correlates of Effective Problem-Solving Teams
   Christopher G. Worley, Ph.D.

   More and more hospitals are attempting to change their organizations and improve quality, customer satisfaction, and clinical outcomes or reduce costs through participation strategies that involve organizational members on problem-solving teams. The key to the success of these strategies is the effectiveness with which these teams solve pressing organizational problems. This article presents the results of a survey completed by over 75 people representing 30 problem-solving teams in five hospitals from four states. The results suggest that team are fairly productive but have not generally affected the more substantive aspects of hospital operations. Recommendations for improving team effectiveness are given.
    

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3. Conflict Management in Surgery: The Impact of Third Party Consultation
   R. Wayne Boss and Mark L. McConkie

   This one-year study describes the impact of a third party consultation intervention in an operating room of a major medical center.  The results show statistically significant levels of improvement on all six subscales of the Group Behavior Inventory, as well as improvements in group effectiveness, honest communication, comfort discussing organizational problems, and interpersonal trust.  Additional results include an increase in the availability of surgical supplies and equipment, a 95% decline in physician abuse of scheduling privileges, a decrease of verbal abuse of nurses by physicians, the reconvening of the OR Standards Committee, and a decrease of nursing turnover from 30% the previous year to zero.
         

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Single Articles

4. Public Sector Information Resources in the Coming Millennium: A Management Imperative
   Mary Maureen Brown, D.P.A.

   More and more hospitals are attempting to change their organizations and improve quality, customer satisfaction, and clinical outcomes or reduce costs through participation strategies that involve organizational members on problem-solving teams. The key to the success of these strategies is the effectiveness with which these teams solve pressing organizational problems. This article presents the results of a survey completed by over 75 people representing 30 problem-solving teams in five hospitals from four states. The results suggest that team are fairly productive but have not generally affected the more substantive aspects of hospital operations. Recommendations for improving team effectiveness are given.
     

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