Governance and Long Term Care

Governance and Long Term Care

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Introduction

The term Long-term care may be used to describe varied services that are known to take care of both medical and non-medical needs of people who suffer from chronic diseases or disability, as well as those incapable of taking care of themselves for a long period. Governance and leadership incorporate both positive and negative effects and impacts on the long term care as they determine how long term care organizations are operated.

Long term care organizations are usually composed of various professionals, support staff among other employees. The most valuable competitive advantage of any long term care organization is, therefore, based on it leadership. Effective long term care leadership mainly requires that the leaders dedicate their resources and identify their organizations needs (Dana & Olson, 2007). Success in long-term care organizations requires leadership which has excellent management skills. Lack of these can result to a negative impact in the organizations.

Due to the various challenges that are facing the healthcare business in the world, it is essential that long term care organizations develop an effective leadership practices while at the same time ensuring that their management is improved. It has been observed that most long term organizations promote people to a leadership position because of their loyalty, and they are do not cause any problems to the organization(Dana& Olson,2007). This results to ineffective leadership in the organization due to lack of appropriate leadership and training. Due to this, the leadership and governance in the long term organization faces various challenges such as conflict resolutions in the organizations, lack of proper problem solving methodologies and poor communication skills.

Long term care demands have progressed over time. Traditionally, governance and leadership in long-term care organization emphasized more on the management process. However with the changing environment and increasing demands, most leaders in these organizations have given little or no significance to the leadership process (Dana& Olson 2007). This has subsequently impacted negatively on the sector and impaired the ability of organizations to meet the expectations of the people who need their services. Due to this, leadership in the long term care organization is unable to come up with visionary planning, which result in failure of the organizations.

The quality of leadership and governance in the long term care determines the quality of services that are offered by these organizations. It has been noted that most of the leaders in theses organization have the desire to deliver the best services but due to lack of support from other stakeholders, they usually end up not delivering the required results (Hayes, 2002). This subsequently results to such leaders losing their vision and, therefore, the organization may not be able to achieve it set objectives. This shows that, for governance and leadership in the long term care to be effective, there must also receive enough support from the rest of the people who are involved in the care.

The effectiveness of long term care service mainly depends on the quality of communication among the staff in search an organization. Communications, on the other hand, depend on how the staff in such organization relate with each other (Hayes, 2002). Good relationships among the staff is mainly enhanced or developed by the leadership of such an organization. Through this, the organizations that offer long term care are able to offer the expected services to those who need them. In addition, good communication ensures that everyone in the organization knows what is expected of them.

Good leadership and governance in long-term care determines the quality and the type of services offered in the organizations. This is usually achieved through involving the staff and all the employees in shared goals, enhanced knowledge as well as ensuring mutual respects among all the staff (Hayes, 2002). By the leadership ensuring that there is good working environment in the organization, it is possible for such an organization to achieve it objectives and goals. Poor leadership, on the other hand, results into lack of harmony in the organization and therefore, poor services are delivered.

Organizational culture plays a vital role in ensuring the satisfaction of all the stakeholders in long-term care sector. In the organization where their priority is quality services, client’s satisfaction is usually high (Rock & Schwartz, 2006). In such organization, the stakeholders are in constant consultation with the organization management in giving ideas of how the quality of their services can be improved. In organizations that are not quality services oriented, they are usually faced by many challenges and in most cases such organization ends up failing in total.

In conclusion, leadership in long-term care organization is the one of the most crucial aspects that determines the success of such an organization. Poor governance in such organization usually results to not only low quality services but also but also dissatisfaction among the stakeholders. Long term care organization requires leaders who have the capacity to plan for the future of the organization, and manage the daily operations of such organizations.

Reference List

Dana, B., Olson, D. (2007).Effective Leadership in Long term Care: The Need and the

Opportunity. American College of Health Care Adminstrators, 1(1), pp.4-25

Hayes, L. (2002). A Primary Care Leadership Program. Primary Health Care, 12(10), p.22

Rock, D., Schwartz, J. (2006). “The Neuroscience of Leadership.Strategy and Business,

1(1), pp.72-81.