Communication in the Planning Process

Abstract
 
Communication plays a vital role in the planning, strategic and organizing of health care organizations mainly through its ability to facilitate coordination between individuals and departments. In today’s health care environment where health care management and delivery has become convoluted and fragmented, health care organizations are required to be well coordinated in order to provide quality services. Thus as a means to an end, health care managers must learn to utilize effective communication in order to fully coordinate its various services and departments.  
 
 
 
Communication and Healthcare Organizations The healthcare industry is a very complex entity that exists (most…show more content…
To this end, communication becomes an – if not the – important tool for the formation of plans and strategies needed by the organization to address the present healthcare environment. It has been said that today’s healthcare structure has become fragmented and that there is something not quite right in the planning and delivery of health services. To quote Sweeney and Griffiths (2002) “research has little direct effect on health service policy, organizational change has little effect on service provision, rational priority setting frameworks remain elusive and health economists continue to develop technical solutions that have no impact at the grassroots level.” Even at the administrative level organizations are barely capable of coping from being continuously under siege – resulting in a penchant for process rather than actual outcome indicators. This leads organization managers to present “glossy corporate images that belie problems” of the organization. Part of the problem lies in the nature of healthcare organizations being different from other sectors that have instigated cultural changes. Stakeholders in healthcare organizations “have disparate schemes of values and beliefs” while “physicians’ independent perspective often differs from organizational perspectives” (Lloyd, 2008, p.1).