Healthcare Human Resources Management
Masters in Health Care Administration Program
King Abdul-Aziz University
Spring 2008
Course Syllabus
1. Class Time
Wednesday & Thursday : 18 – 20:30
2. Instructor Dr. Talal Alshareef
Work Phone: 026400000-65577
Phone: 026952142
E-mail Address: dralshareef@yahoo.com
3. Texts
-Healthcare Human Resources Management
Flynn, Mathias, Jackson
الموارد البشرية مدخل لتحقيق الميزة التنافسية ، مصطفى محمود أبو بكر-
4. Course Requirements
Literature Search and Group Presentation
Presentation 20 points
Research Paper 20 points
Mid Exam 20 points
Final Test 40 points
Total Points 100 Points
Literature Search and Group Presentations
Groups of students will select a healthcare human resources topic and research that topic by reviewing a minimum of 10 articles on the topic and reporting their research to the class in the form of a presentation. Presentations should take a minimum of 30 minutes and no more that 45 minutes. The topic needs to be pre-approved by the instructor.
Research Paper
Each student will be required to write a 10-page paper on a topic of their choice related to contemporary issues in healthcare human resources management. Topics must be pre-approved by the instructor.
The papers should be double-spaced and should be the results of research into at least 10 articles that are no more than 5 years old. Papers are due on April 27. The paper generally should define the topic, review the information from the literature and review how the student would propose to introduce and implement the topic or program into a modern healthcare organization. Research Papers should not be done on the same topic the student has picked for their presentation.
Course Outline
First Week (A)
Introduction and Course Overview
Syllabus Review
Requirements Review
Review of Texts
Introduction of Students
Review of Relevant Experiences in Healthcare
Review of Student Course Load
Review of Expectations of Students
First Week (B)
Strategic Human Resources Management
Reading Assignment: Chapters 1-3 Flynn
Exercise: Tying the Organization's Strategic Plan to HR Initiatives
Learning Objectives:
Understanding the Different Types of Healthcare Organizations
Understanding the current and future challenges faced
By the Healthcare Industry and their impact on Human
Resources
Understanding the Human Resource Functional Areas
Understanding the Unique Aspects of Healthcare HR
Understanding Management Competencies
Understanding the relationship between patient safety
and HR
JCAHO and the Human Resources function
Understanding the strategic nature of HR
Understanding how HR contributes to the strategic plan
Defining HR Planning in a healthcare organization
2nd Week (A)
Corporate Culture and Organizational Development
Exercise:
Design an organizational culture by defining the Mission, Vision, and Values of an organization.
Describe the written and unwritten rules that govern an organization.
Describe the cultural attributes of a physician culture inane organization where the physicians are medical staff members and not employees.
Define the Standards of behavior that will govern your relationship with your Employees.
Develop an employee opinion survey.
Learning Objectives:
Orient the student to the importance of organizational culture.
Provide an orientation to culture development initiatives.
Help the student understand the difference between organizational culture and physician culture.
Understand the importance of linking culture with all organizational initiatives.
Understand how cultural initiatives fit into human resource activities and functional areas such as performance appraisal and compensation.
2nd Week (B)
American Hospital Association Commission on Workforce for
Hospitals and Health Systems, "In Our Hands" "How Hospital Leaders can Build a Thriving Workforce"
Reading Assignment: Review excerpts from the Report
Learning Objectives:
Understand the objectives of the study and subsequent report
Review the challenges that confront the industry and HR
Review the initiatives that were implemented to resolve issues
Understand that all organizations regardless of size have innovative solutions to challenges
Exercise:
Review one initiative and come up with recommendations
Discuss two additional initiatives and the recommendations
Third Week (A)
Compliance and Legal Issues Confronting Healthcare Human Resources
Reading Assignment: Chapters 2-4 Flynn,
Student Presentations
Learning Objectives:
Understand the laws and regulations that impact the delivery of Human Resources services and program
Understand the lawful and unlawful practices of the Human Resources department and management staff
Understand basic discrimination laws and regulations
Understand the basic principles of EEO and AAP programs.
Identify the importance of an effective sexual
Harassment program and policy.
Understand the difference between ethics and legal responsibilities.
Understand discrimination and its importance in evaluating employee relations issu
Review Case Law on Sexual Harassment Prevention
Programs.
Third Week (B)
Job Analysis and Design
Reading Assignment Chapter 5 Flynn, Langan
Student Presentations
Learning Objectives:
Understand the importance of Job Analysis and Job Design.
Describe the appropriate uses of job analysis.
Understand the common types of job analysis.
Review the difference between job duties, job requirements and job specifications.
Understand the link between job descriptions and JCAHO.
Exercise:
Review several job descriptions.
Use one job analysis process to evaluate and rank jobs.
Understand how the analysis emerges into a job titling Program.
Understand how job analysis supports compensation practices.
Forth Week (A
Healthcare Recruitment and Selection
Reading Assignment: Chapter 6, Flynn,
Student Presentation
Learning Objectives:
Understand the decisions that need to be made during the process of recruitment and selection.
Describe the methods used to recruit internally and externally.
Describe the criteria used to evaluate candidates. Describe the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of the recruitment process.
Discuss the difference between job performa selection criteria, and predictors of success for candidates.
Outline the selection process and discuss any legal ramifications.
Discuss the process and importance of pre-employment background checking.
Exercise:
Develop questions that are related to the criteria you will use to select a new Chief Executive Officer.
Forth Week (B)
Employee and Labor Relations
Reading Assignment: Chapter 7,10,11
Student Presentations
Learning Objectives
Examine the factors that determine the quality of relationship between the employee and their organization.
Discuss the importance of retention.
Identify the reasons for employee loyalty in an organization.
Understand employment agreements.
Describe employment at will.
Review progressive discipline and grievance
procedures.
Identify the National Labor Code.
Understand unionization and collective bargaining.
Exercise:
Mock Labor Negotiations
Fifth Week (A)
Training, Development and Performance Management
Reading Assignment: Chapter 8,9
Student Presentations
Learning Objectives
Discuss how employee performance reviews and training are linked.
Define different learning styles.
Review the training and development requirement of JCAHO.
Describe the Performance Appraisal Process.
Describe Performance Management as a process.
Exercise: Develop a performance appraisal process and document.
FIFTH Week (B)
Compensation Management
Reading Assignment: Chapter 12
Student Presentations
Learning Objectives
Understand the entitlement versus pay for performance philosophies.
Understand FLSA.
Discuss Salary Administration Guidelines.
Define Executive Compensation Principles.
Exercise: Rate the following positions based on where
you think the employees ought to be paid.
Review the components parts of the executive compensation pieces including the plan document. Using compensation surveys construct a salary range.
SIXTH Week (A)
Benefits Administration
Reading Assignment: Chapter 13
Student Presentations
Learning Objectives
Compare and contrast variable pay and employee benefit plans.
Identify the various types of benefit plans.
Discuss short term and long term objectives related to incentives or bonuses.
Exercise:
Review Employee Benefit Plans and the Design and cost of Employee Benefit Plans.
SIXTH Week (B)
Getting to Yes
Reading Assignment: "Getting to Yes"
Student Presentations
Learning Objectives
Understand the concepts of Principle Based
Bargaining.
Understand the process of Win Bargaining and It's application to employee and labor relations.
Exercise:
Review the principles and use the principles to solve a labor relations issue.
Human resource management
Human resource management (HRM) – a major determinant of any system's performance – has been overlooked in the health sector until recently. While the non-health sector has defined and evaluated the effects of HRM interventions, the particular nature of the health sector makes difficult to apply lessons learned from elsewhere. However, one lesson that can be applied to HRM in health is that single or uncoordinated interventions are less likely to achieve performance improvements than strategic packages. See What difference does (good) HRM make?
The importance of human resources management in health care: a global context considers the importance of HRM in improving overall patient health outcomes and delivery of health care services. The authors argue that proper management of human resources is critical in providing a high quality of health care. The authors argue that a refocus on HRM in health care and more research are needed to develop new policies. New and effective human resources management strategies are needed to achieve better outcomes from and access to health care around the world.
Defining roles and competencies
Competencies – what a person is capable of doing, rather than what they are doing – help address both behavioural and technical skills needed to define job expectations and requirements. They provide a common language and framework for those critical – but sometimes elusive – aspects of job performance and are an effective tool for communicating about performance because they help people frame expectations and goals in clear terms. See the generic roles and competencies project.
Defining and maintaining job descriptions
Job descriptions are the basic organising element in any organisation. They document an employee's tasks and responsibilities, what his or her authority is, and what skills and qualifications are necessary to do the work. They form the basis of the contract an individual holds with the organization. Definition of appropriate job descriptions contributes to improve efficiency of the workforce. They need to be dynamic and flexible allowing for revision and adaptation to new situations, expanding or focusing the scope of intervention according to needs. Changes in job description should always be accompanied by educational support to ensure appropriate skills. See The Health and Family Planning Manager's Toolkit.
Improved supervision
Supervision of staff in health care has two aims: to ensure the quality of program and clinic operations; and to enable staff to perform to their maximum potential. Traditional approaches have focused on 'inspecting' facilities and 'controlling' individual staff performance. However, improving performance and maintaining standards through individual supervision is impractical: most services are complex and the result of coordinated team effort, and are not dependent on the actions of a single individual.
Further resources:
• Guidelines for implementing supportive supervision: a step-by-step guide with tools to support immunization
• Making supervision supportive and sustainable: new approaches to old problems
Professional development and training
Contemporary specificities of labour in the health care sector: introductory notes for discussion argues that the rapid development of health innovation systems means that knowledge can become out of date. The authors argue that continued education and training of health personnel will help overcome these barriers and improve the labour status of the sector.
Further resources:
• WHO recommendations for clinical mentoring to support scale-up of HIV care, antiretroviral therapy and prevention in resource-constrained settings
• Educating to improve population health outcomes in chronic disease: an innovative workforce initiative across remote, rural and Indigenous communities in northern Australia
Work environment
The work environment has a strong influence on job satisfaction and turnover. Decisions to emigrate by nurses and doctors are often related to a poor working environment. Low recognition, poor communication, poor supervision and career stagnation are some of the most cited factors. Magnet hospitals, despite being a concept developed in more industrialised countries, is a good example of how a good work environment can increase retention of health workers . See A lasting attraction? The "Magnet" accreditation of Rochdale Infirmary
Further resources
• What makes a good employer?
• Perceptions of health workers about conditions of service: A Namibian case study
Tools for HRH management
• MSH Improving human resource management
• WHO tools and methodologies for the health workforce
• HRH Global Resource Centre Tools
• HRH Tool Compendium
Resources from the US and the UK
• UK Department of Health: human resources and training
• UK Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
• Health Care Workforce Toolkit - from the American Hospital Association
Recommended reading
What difference does ("good") HRM make?
Human resources management in healthcare: can it be adopted effectively?
Buchan, J. / Human Resources for Health (2004)
This article from Human Resources for Health examines the issue of human resources management (HRM) in health systems. It looks at how HRM has been defined in other sectors and at the indicators developed to measure the effectiveness of HRM interventions. The author assesses how the lessons from these other sectors can be carried over into using improved HRM strategies to create sustainable improvement in health systems.
The article points out that the different context of the healthcare setting means that the strategies of effective HRM have to be adapted for the unique conditions of health systems. Performance, one of the main indicators used in HRM, can only be adequately assessed by means of indicators that are sector-specific. In a health system these would include indicators focused on measures of clinical activity (such as number of staff per occupied bed), measures of output (such as number of patients treated) or measures of outcome (such as mortality rates). The author argues that it is necessary to match the right approach to HRM to the characteristics, context and priorities of the organisation in which it is being used. It is also advisable to adopt a number of related or linked HRM interventions rather than relying on the use of a single intervention.
Available online at: http://www.human-resources- health.com/content/2/1/6
Contemporary specificities of labour in the health care sector: introductory notes for discussion
Investigating the distinct characteristics labour in the health care sector
Albuquerque, E.; Campos, F.E. / Human Resources for Health (2005)
This review, published in Human Resources for Health, considers the literature on public health, economics of health and economics of technological innovation in combination, in order to discuss the peculiarities of labour in the health care sector. The paper identifies the prevalence of non-market forms of medical care in the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). It also finds that the health care system has a distinctive characteristic from other economic sectors: it is the intersection between social welfare and innovation systems. The relationship between technological innovation and cost in the health care sector is therefore identified as critically important. Brazil is presented as a developing country case study of where this relationship is taking place.
The authors conclude that peculiarities of labour in the health care sector meant that there is a need to recognise the worth of sectoral labour and to stop treating it separately. This process should take into account the rapid development of the health innovation system and one important consequence of this rapid development: the obsolescence of the acquired knowledge. The authors argue that one way to dignify labour is to implement continued education and training of health professions personnel.
Available online at: http://www.human-resources-health.com/content/pdf/1478-4491-3- 8.pdf
