Management-Research The hospital has an excellent reputation, has earned awards, and is considered an exceptional place to receive care for ailments such as burn victims, Hemophilia B, brain tumors, and pediatrics. The hospital is one of two in the U.S. that offers palliative care to pediatric patients (Schindler, 2022). Despite these staggering statistics, the hospital still faces two major competitors in the local area, which are both smaller hospitals but are nationally recognized for their own merits. The hospital would like to be the leading competitor in the area to provide the best care for its patients. This includes being able to serve as many counties in the surrounding areas as possible. Another one of the measuring sticks for providing quality care is the number of patients the hospital is able to treat. Excellent treatment can allow patients to recover and return to their homes in a more timely manner, where they are more comfortable and happy, a better environment for healing. This allows the hospital to turn over beds and treat more patients. Patient perspective on this concept is incredibly important, for the patients must not feel rushed in their care and this is a delicate balance to strike when trying to treat, diagnose, and return them to their home environment as expeditiously as possible. This philosophy of care is going to start with management and trickle down through the staff in energy, attitude, and job satisfaction which the patients will feel the impact of when being treated in the facility.

Advantages/Disadvantages

This area of the U.S. is known for some of the highest quality healthcare available. The research company tried to narrow down the specific reasons for why any of the three above-mentioned facilities were being chosen by a patient or the parent/guardian of a patient. The first discovery unearthed was that the two competing facilities were both ranked higher as a choice for hospital stays lasting longer than three days. The research team collected overall high ratings on Akron’s facility, but another area in which the score was low was an emotional connection to patients during treatment. The research team was able to begin the task armed with this knowledge, and sympathize with the medical staff. Emphasizing their interest in using the study to improve conditions building rapport with the providers and putting them at ease during the overt study is an advantage of this type of study (Wilson, 2020). While conducting direct observations of doctor-patient visits, the research team observed parents and children directly interacting with the providers and staff in a variety of care settings such as lab tests, consults, emergency room visits, routine checkups, and surgical preparation. For this part of the study, a video recording was permitted, which allowed the team to watch and re-watch to analyze things like body language and tone of voice. This gave the study an advantage in observing the exchange of communication from both sides with intensity, and provide an extremely thorough report. Disadvantages are the obvious presence of the camera and outsiders will undoubtedly make providers and patients behave differently than normal, and the experience is less organic, despite providing the material that can be studied in such depth.

Brand Promise

“Akron Children’s Hospital focuses ALL the hospital’s resources (energy, creativity, state-of-the-art-technology, compassion, technical skill, competence, etc.) toward the simple goal of helping every child reach his or her full potential” (Schindler, 2022). The great thing about the research was that the outcome was able to demonstrate that the true intent of the hospital and its staff is in the best interest of children receiving excellent health care and being allowed to be children. The study shows that the hospital lives up to its reputation in utilizing the most up-to-date technology and resources whenever possible and always putting the patients first. The Doctors use every effort to explain things to children in ways that they can understand. The entire experience is true to the mission statement of the hospital and with slight tweaking and training, the emotional connection can be improved upon in order to bring the brand promise up to the level of success the hospital is looking to achieve. Studies now show that the emotional connection can be as, if not even more effective treatment than the care given by the provider in a patient care setting (DeAngelis, 2019).

Observation Study

If another study were to be conducted, it would be wise to include the methods already being used here, because the direct observations used are the best way to collect data for this type of setting. Using indirect observations would also be valuable, it would give the results more confidence to show that as many methods as possible had been exhausted, even creative or unorthodox ones if necessary. For example, a patient questionnaire could have been put into place to ask patients how they witnessed the staff being treated by superiors during their visits. Sometimes the unexpected vantage points can give the most surprising yet valuable results in uncovering why a system isn’t operating at its full potential. Other methods that were more covert, or in secret, would capture more authentic behavior. This is difficult to do in a healthcare setting due to privacy rules. Perhaps a quality improvement disclosure could be included in the patient intake forms, and audio-recordings could be taken, which can easily have names and personally identifiable information (PII) deleted and the conversations between patients and providers or providers and subordinates can be listened to at random to monitor behavior and treatment. Unfortunately, for the process to be considered truly covert and the subject to behave in the most natural manner possible, consent is not granted, (Threlfall, 2011), so this would almost be impossible in a healthcare setting.

Ethical Issues

As mentioned, privacy issues are the most difficult to overcome in a study such as this. Caregivers must follow the rules and regulations of the Health Insurance Profitability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) with full disclosure to patients of the study being conducted during the visit. Following the research, the proper security or destruction of the material collected is equally as important, so as not to allow the patients protected identity or health information to become available to unauthorized personnel.

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