Sociology

This case study seeks to undertake an analysis of CreekSide Convalescence Hospital with a view of identify the key management strategies that the facility administration may need to pursue in their efforts to meet the public expectations for high quality services. The nursing homes play a very critical role in ensuring specialist Medicare to a variety of special needs patients. This means that numerous experts are involved in the daily activities of the facility. It is therefore important that proper management and activity coordination is implemented for the smooth and successful running of such facilities. This case study of CreekSide Convalescence Hospital has given special emphasis on the implementation of information systems as being central in the management of a nursing home.

Introduction
CreekSide Convalescent Hospital is a religious nonmedical health care institution that is situated on the 850 Sonoma avenue Santa Rosa in California. This facility specializes in the provision of extended-stay nursing care to seniors with different levels of disabilities within Santa Rosa, California. The hospitals primary specialty is a nursing home. The hospital has several departments ranging from clinical laboratory to house keeping services. There are several employees both specialists and non-specialists who work both full time and part-time at the facility. The facility was first approved to provide Medicare services in 1974 (Hospital-Data, 2009).

Nursing homes are institutions where persons who do not necessarily need to be in hospitals and at the same time cannot be cared for at home are housed and taken care of. This means that nursing homes are nearly structured like hospitals and utilizes the services of nursing aids and skilled nurses who attend to those admitted round the clock. The staffs are supposed to provide medical care and other forms of therapy. Because nursing homes care for a very special category of patients most of whom require 24 hours of attention, it is important that the nursing homes have in place efficient standards for their services and administration (National Institute of Health, 2010).

This hospital provides services onsite to the residents of Santa Rosa. The services include clinical laboratory services, dental care services, Dietary services, mental health services, housekeeping services, nursing services, and occupational therapy services. The other services include pharmacy services, physical therapy services, physician services, podiatry services, social work services, speech or language pathology services, therapeutic recreation specialist services, and diagnostic x-ray services. All these activities are either provided by staff onsite to residents or the social services staff onsite to the residents (Hospital-Data, 2009).

The hospital has employed quite a number of both specialists and non-specialists to offer the variety of services listed on its catalog. The employees either work on full-time terms or on part time terms for the hospital. Available statistics at the facility indicates that the full time activity professional staff employed at the facility accounts for 1.04 of the employees while the full time administrative staff account for 6.35 of the total employees. The activity professional staff category include registered nurses, certified nurse aides, dietitians, occupational therapists, occupational therapy aides, pharmacists, podiatrists, speech pathologist, and other physicians (Hospital-Data, 2009).

The success of CreekSide Convalescent Hospital is very much dependent n prudent management on the part of the hospital administration. This means that there is need for the facility to always strive to offer high quality services that are associated with public expectations. To achieve this mission of nursing homes, it would be important for the management to come up with strategic management plan that would address matters of quality in line acceptable high quality nursing care services. At the same time, it is important the activity professional staff observe professionalism in the course of their duty. Most nursing homes have been characteristically identified with the lack of information systems despite the important roles they play in ensuring specialized care. This has always meant that the general public is unable to access efficient management services including better management of chronic conditions and improved access to information that would result from the establishment of information systems. It is generally agreed that implementation of action plans involving establishment of information systems will help increase the quality of patient care and minimize incidences of medical errors (Alexander, 2008).

Though this facility has a long history in the nursing field, the fast changing administrative roles require proper coordination between the administration and the staff. There is also need to develop a clear coordination system between the numerous specialists who offer the various nursing services. Most nursing homes have been characteristically identified with the lack of information systems despite the important roles they play in ensuring specialized care. This has always meant that the general public is unable to access efficient management services including better management of chronic conditions and improved access to information that would result from the establishment of information systems. It is generally agreed that implementation of action plans involving establishment of information systems at the CreekSide Hospital will help increase the quality of patient care and minimize incidences of medical errors (Alexander, 2008).

Strategic Management
There is increasing demand from the general public for better service provision by the nursing homes. This aspect continues to exert a lot of pressure on nursing home operators not only to provide the desired services as residents enter their facilities, but that they must also modify their services to match the ever changing needs of their residents. This calls for the incorporation of a wide variety of care services that a resident can access from within the facility. Though this has always been a key concern in the management of nursing homes, majority of operators have always paid very little attention (CBS Interactive, 2010).

Nursing homes that will therefore remain adamant to 5the market forces that are determined to drive key changes in their operations, and are instead fixed to their traditional and longstanding modes of operation face greater risk of being rendered unsuitable. Strategic management calls for the ability of institution managers to steer their institutions towards growth and expansion. To achieve this, there is need on the part of the management to continuously monitor the changing landscape and come up with action plans, products and services that are able to effectively respond to the market characteristics (CBS Interactive, 2010).

Community Needs Assessment
This is a strategic management mechanism that gives direction on how to maximize an institutions patient mix. It will work towards giving the indication on the new products and services according to the market place needs. This call for the application of integrated information systems for purposes of data analysis to enable service providers undertake an assessment of the demand for services according to changing public needs  (CBS Interactive, 2010).

Community needs assessment calls for a detailed audit for the purposes of identifying the extent of the market being served. Such an audit would ensure that relevant information on current and proposed services are captured and rated so that necessary adjustments may be made to reflect the changing market needs. This approach would ensure nursing homes remain relevant and meet their key purpose of quality services to the general public (CBS Interactive, 2010).

Information Systems
The information systems that are ideal for implementation in CreekSide Hospital are those systems that relate actual measurement of care that is provided to the home residents. The systems should support the storage of clinical data including the documentation of care delivered to each and every resident within a nursing home. The chronic cases that nursing homes handle call for the establishment of triggers and alert information systems. These should be capable of relying frequency messages from home residences to the risk management oversight. These are information systems capable of automatically sending messages to an end user as a notification of a potential patient problem so as to ensure quality risk management (Alexander, 2008).

An information system that offers prudent management of clinical data will enable the multiple service providers in the facility including physical therapists nurses, medical technicians, and physicians gain relevant access to patient information. This is important because all these professionals provide necessary treatments, education and assessments contained in the medical records. Prudent management of data would ensure that each of the stakeholders make the best possible decision about a patient (Alexander, 2008).

Implementation of action plans that involve the integration of information systems into the management of CreekSide Hospital is very important in ensuring excellence in service delivery to the general public. This is because information systems ensure decision support that facilitates efficient coordination and interaction between the multiple service providers since all the residents data are coordinated and all the sources listed. This is important in meeting the overall mission of providing quality life and quality care to the general public (Alexander, 2008).

Conclusion
CreekSide Hospital as a nursing facility plays a very central role in the provision of onsite nursing services to the residents of Santa Rosa, California. The magnitude with which nursing home have in the recent past gained popularity has meant that there is a very high expectation from the general public on the standards and quality of services that are being offered within the facility. This calls for the change of approach and strategy by the management so that they may pursue and implement plans that would ensure that their services meet public expectation. The key area that has for a long time been associated with poor quality services in most nursing homes has been the lack of information systems that can assist in proper coordination of their activities.

The continued success and survival of this facility should thus be a key concern to the administration, staff and the other entire stakeholder. There should be good liaison among the stakeholders, the hospital facilities should be given a major facelift, and implementation of information systems be pursued as a priority. It is from this improvement strategy approach that CreekSide Hospital can stand out to be counted among the leaders in nursing care provision.