Organizational Design Paper

Organizational Design Paper

Stefanie Parker

HCS/514

June 17, 2011

Kendra Slatton

Organizational Design Paper

Kittitas Valley Community Hospital (KVCH) is a publicly tax funded critical access hospital in Ellensburg, Washington that strives to offer exceptional community health care. KVCH has grown dramatically in size over the last 10 years to accommodate for the growing community. The economy, legal aspects, technological advances in health care, and the government have been the major external factors that have shaped KVCH as an organization. As there are external factors, the main internal factors that have defined our organization are our shareholders (patients), the employees and our suppliers/distributors.

The most important external factor that has defined our organization is the economy. A few years ago when the country was in the midst of major economic problems we as an organization felt it as well and had to adapt our way of working to accommodate what was happening in our country. Thankfully KVCH did not have to lay off any employees and continued to hire new employees when other companies had hiring freezes. Not only did this help our community with still offering jobs but also reflected well on KVCH that we could fiscally manage the organization in an economic downfall. Directors in each department were asked to cut back significantly in their supply and overtime budget. Employees were not authorized for overtime unless necessary and unnecessary supplies were not authorized for purchased.

KVCH survived the economic crisis in our country, and we are thriving more than ever. One of the factors that have helped us thrive was becoming a lean organization. “At its core, lean is a process-improvement methodology and management improvement system,” Lean solutions involve looking at processes, breaking them down into parts, and eliminating waste. Waste is an important concept in lean thinking, especially as it relates to time and...