Statement of Philosophy The purpose of Physician Assistants is to examine patients, diagnose injuries and illnesses, and provided treatment. They take complete patient medical histories, examine and treat, order and interpret laboratory results and X-rays, make diagnoses as well as prescribe medications to patients.
All of this is done under the direction of a physician or surgeon. They are versatile and collaborative and are highly trained to provide most of the same things a physician can. Physician Assistants are a vital part to any organization. Whether it is a hospital, a doctors’ office or an outpatient center, they are able to take over stable patient care to be able to allow the physicians to have the flexibility to tend to more serious and urgent cases. Physician Assistants also work in many different specialty practices such as cardiology, endocrinology, neurology, orthopedics, sports medicine, surgery and women’s health conditions just to name a few.
They are in such high demand that according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the profession will increase 37 percent from 2016 to 2026. The purpose of this Organizational and Administrative guide is to clearly state our goals and policies, and the procedures and methods of meeting those goals. For Physician Assistant’s their goals are to improve the quality of life of as many people as possible and to give back to their community. Although they come from different backgrounds, most physician assistants prefer to work in underserved communities that really need more available, affordable and thorough patient care. With an organizational manual a clear way can be devised to executing these goals.
Leading Organizations My name is Edgardo Rodriguez, Director of Physician Assistants. It is my goal to inspire and demonstrate effective management and leadership skills to create an amazing team of passionate, well trained and well rounded Physician Assistants aligned with the same goal of top notch patient care. For more information on my leadership experience please go to my website at http://directoredgardorodriguez.weebly.com/ According to Northouse (2012) he defines directing or leading as influencing people’s behavior through motivation, communication, group dynamics, leadership, and discipline. The purpose of directing is to inspire employees of the organization to channel the behavior of all personnel to accomplish the organization’s mission and objectives while simultaneously helping them accomplish their own career objectives. Leadership is an important function of management because it helps maximize efficiency and achieve organizational goals. According to Sawyer ; Judge (2012), leaders have the ability to inspire people to go beyond what they think they are capable of, making it possible for a group to attain a goal that was previously thought unattainable.
Leaders carry their followers along by a) inspiring their trust, b) acting consistently, and c) motivating them with words and deeds. Leaders must accept responsibility and practice three skills: 1.) Elicit the cooperation of others: meaning to get others to buy into your vision of the future and the right way to get there. 2.) Listen well: meaning to be able to hone in on listening skills to gather information from others in order to lead. 3.) Place the needs of others above their own: Leadership requires that you be willing to sacrifice for the greater good. According to MSG (2015) and their overview of effective leadership these are additional qualities a leader must possess: Initiates action-A leader is a person who starts the work by communicating the policies and plans to the subordinates from where the work actually starts. Motivation-A leader proves to be playing an incentive role in the concern’s working.
He motivates the employees with economic and non-economic rewards and thereby gets the work from the employees. Providing guidance-A leader has to not only supervise but also play a guiding role for the employees. Guidance here means instructing the employees the way they have to perform their work effectively and efficiently. Creating confidence-Confidence is an important factor which can be achieved through expressing the work efforts to employees, explaining them clearly their role and giving them guidelines to achieve the goals effectively.
It is also important to hear the employees with regards to their complaints and problems. Building morale – Morale denotes willing co-operation of the employees towards their work and getting them into confidence and winning their trust. A leader can be a morale booster by achieving full co-operation so that they perform with best of their abilities as they work to achieve goals. Builds work environment – Management is getting things done from people.
An efficient work environment helps in sound and stable growth. Therefore, human relations should be kept into mind by a leader. He or she should have personal contacts with employees and should listen to their problems and solve them. He or she should treat employees on humanitarian terms.
Co-ordination – Co-ordination can be achieved through reconciling personal interests with organizational goals. This synchronization can be achieved through proper and effective co-ordination which should be primary motive of a leader. Total Quality Management or TQM is the management style that works best for a hospital, a doctors’ office or an outpatient center that employs Physician Assistants because our main priority is our patients. Since we are working with a team of Physician Assistants and the quality of care is dependent on the level of dedication of the PA and it is important to make sure employees have a personal stake in the output of service. Setting achievable goals and having performance reviews regularly and rewards based on performance are key to the success of a hospital, a doctors’ office or an outpatient center.
Ethics & Biblical Principles Beliefs, values and morals are the best way to navigate through the challenges and decisions one makes as an administrator in a clinical setting. The most fundamental thing that shapes our ethical decision making is belief. According to Sawyer and Judge (2012), Beliefs are any idea held to be true. For example when treating a patient, a common belief is that diet and exercise is best for cardiac health and because this is the prescribed belief we recommend it to our patients.
Beliefs are shaped over time and interactions with others and these beliefs are a guideline for our decision making. Secondly we use our values. According to Sawyer and Judge (2012) a value reflects a preference for specific behavior or achieved outcome. For example Physician Assistants hold as their primary responsibility the health, safety, welfare and dignity of all human beings.
So when we go to decide, devise a plan for treatment, or create a partnership with another company or brand we must never do it if it does not align with these values. Also, when hiring employees, they must value the principles in order to maintain unity and solidarity within the organization. Thirdly, moral standards are the baseline values that dictate appropriate behavior in society. These are values that are needed in order for society to function properly. For example, honesty, justice, fairness, responsibility and respect. These are values without which society would breakdown.
So as a business we must always adhere to these fundamental values in addition to our believes and other values. For more information o ethical decision making, see the example on the leadership page of my website, http://directoredgardorodriguez.weebly.com/ Planning Before we can effectively reach our goals, we must properly plan our path to those goals. Planning is an important factor when dealing with Physician Assistants. They must help us meet our goals by providing top notch health services, staying up to date with the latest medical information and maintaining good bedside manner. By following the professional standards and ethics of the American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) we can plan for the success of meeting our mission and delivering top notch, safe and legal patient care. The American Academy of Physician Assistants (AAPA) Standards and Ethics can be found here https://www.aapa.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/16-EthicalConduct.pdf The first stage of planning is aligning our organization in compliance with ethical and legal standards for Physician Assistants.
There are four main bioethical principles of Physician Assistants which are autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. • Autonomy, strictly speaking, means self-rule. Patients have the right to make autonomous decisions and choices, and PAs should respect these decisions and choices. • Beneficence means that PAs should act in the patient’s best interest. In certain cases, respecting the patient’s autonomy and acting in their best interests may be difficult to balance. • Nonmaleficence means to do no harm, to impose no unnecessary or unacceptable burden upon the patient.
Justice means that patients in similar circumstances should receive similar care. • Justice also applies to norms for the fair distribution of resources, risks, and costs. The second phase of planning in compliance with AAPA standards is defining our administrative practices. We must clearly define our mission, purposes and goals that reflect the needs of our patients, personnel and community, create a written organizational plan, define our policies and procedures, have a focused administrator, appropriate fiscal management and planning, continuous improvement in the quality of care we provide, qualified staff and staff development, and physical setting that is designed to provide a sage and accessible environment to achieve our defined goals. The third phase of planning is patient management.
We must plan a system of keeping record of our patients as well as a plan for the coordination, continuation and progression of care for our patients. We must create an appropriate plan of care for each patient individually and communicate the planning, implementation and assessment with the patients as well as collaborate with appropriate disciplines to achieve goal and discharge of the patient. We must intervene and re-examine patients as often as needed to achieve our goal of top notch quality service. We must discharge patients when their goals have been achieved as well as keep proper documentation, communication and coordination of the entire process from initial examination until discharge. Finally we must continue to educate for ourselves, our staff and the public and research new health trends to maintain our responsibility to promote healing in our community.
After planning our clinic to be aligned with the standards and ethics for Physician Assistants, we must still plan for common business challenges that are presented. Common career issues to plan for as a Physician Assistant are not having the availability in a desired specialty. For example, wanting to be a Physician Assistant in cardiology but no jobs are available but family practice positions are. A SWOT analysis is a good tool for Directors of Physician Assistants.
SWOT is an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and is a structured planning method that evaluates those four elements of an organization, project or business venture. When we analyze and compare the internal strengths and weakness as well as external opportunities and threats we can develop a successful plan to reach our goals. For an example of a SWOT analysis, please feel free to see the leadership page of my website, http://directoredgardorodriguez.weebly.com/ Organizing (Programming)
