If you do well in this course, you will be able to:

• Convey an understanding and appreciation of the evolving role of the health care manager in this modern era of health care, with its rapidly changing environment experiencing the effect of managed care, cost containment procedures, and health care system restructuring and realignment.
• Develop an understanding of management in health care as not necessarily unique, because of the nature of the industry, but as special because of the kinds of activities required for the proper delivery of health services, and the type, and number of staff personnel required to deliver those services.
• Distinguish between the managerial and non-managerial sides of the supervisory (first-line managerial) role, provide guidance for balancing the facets of the role, and establish first-line management in health care as a strongly people-oriented function concerned mostly with day to day operations.
• Provide practical definitions and explanations of some frequently encountered management terms and concepts, describe the essential functions of management, and describe the relative influence of the basic management functions on the roles of managers at all levels.
• Place delegation in perspective as one of the single most important activities of management, define the concept of empowerment as proper delegation, and convey a pattern of behavior that will enable the supervisor to delegate thoroughly and effectively - that is, to empower.
• Create an appreciation of time as the ultimate nonrenewable resource, and consider how time is wasted on the job and provide guidance for proving the supervisor's use of time.
• Supplement delegation and time management with other dimensions of personal effectiveness, suggesting how to overcome the common barriers to personal effectiveness and how to organize yourself for improved effectiveness.
• Establish the supervisor's role in the essential process of acquiring appropriate staff, provide guidelines for legal interviewing with insight, and present advice for the conduct of employee selection interviews.
• Convey and reinforce the importance of maintaining an effective communicating relationship with each employee, provide advice on overcoming the barriers to effective communication, and provide guidelines for effective interpersonal communication.
• Review the common leadership patterns or styles, and review the assumptions (about individuals) that seem to drive various styles, and instill an appreciation of the essential qualities of effective leadership.
• Become familiar with the apparent reasons why people work, relate these reasons to what is generally known about human motivation, and determine what the supervisor can do to influence employees to become more highly motivated.
• To instill an appreciation of the value of performance appraisal, outline the requirements of an effective, legally defensible performance appraisal system, and provide alternatives to traditional performance appraisal process.
• Establish the nature of criticism and introduce the concept of progressive discipline; provide clear distinction between problems of conduct and problems of performance and provide guidelines for dealing fairly and effectively with each.
• Explore the reasons why some employees may present for the supervisor and present guidelines for dealing with troublesome employees; learn to recognize and address certain variations of problem employees, and learn how to address the most common employee problem - absenteeism.
• Introduce he human resource department as it relates to the role of the supervisor or other manager, and suggest how to establish a constructive working relationship with human resources and how to ensure maximum effective service in human resource matters.
• Introduce the department supervisor to the areas of medical ethics and business ethics; identify matters of conflict of interest and regulatory compliance as the individual supervisor's areas of greatest ethical concern, and establish the supervisor's responsibility for modeling ethical behavior for the employees.
• Identify the essential elements of the decision-making process, determine how the common constraints define the boundaries of the decision environment, and relate risk, uncertainty, and potential consequences to the decision-making effort.
• Create an appreciation of change as inevitable, in all fields; learn how the department supervisor can best cope with change in two significant ways: recognizing and addressing resistance to change in their own behavior, and assisting employees in overcoming resistance to necessary change.
• Place written communication in perspective as an important aspect of managerial communication, and provide guidelines for writing simpler and clearer letters and memos.
• Examine meetings as an essential form of business communication, provide guidelines for thorough meeting preparation, and offer suggestions for leading meetings, and utilizing meetings to their maximum effectiveness.
• Manage basic budgeting concepts and understand common approaches to budgeting, step-by-step guidance in budget preparation, and acquaint participants with the fundamentals of monitoring expenses against budget.
• Understand the concepts of the total quality management movement, relate quality concerns to the progression of the concern for productivity in health care organizations, and bring the two concepts together as key dimensions of our necessary, overall concern for organizational effectiveness.
• Understand the formation and operation of limited-life employee teams, or special purpose teams, with special concern for their legal implications, and to provide guidance for the supervisor in planning and building an ongoing departmental team for maximum effectiveness.
• Present a logical process for approaching the improvement of work methods, and grasp the common techniques and tools, and establish the key role of the department supervisor in instilling in the employees a belief in continuous improvement.
• Expand on the concept of re-engineering, and relate re-engineering to the concept of methods improvement and total quality management, and describe the supervisor's essential role in reduction in force and its aftermath.
• Establish the importance of continuing education for employees and managers; establish the role of the supervisor in providing continuing education, and identify the effects of re-engineering, reduction-in-force (RIF) and other dramatic organizational changes in stimulating the need for intensified continuing education.
• Review areas of legislation with the supervisor of people should be generally familiar with emphasis on the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and other wage and hour laws, and laws pertaining to equal employment opportunity.
• Understand the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), review the expressed intent of the HIPAA and examine the principal contentious portions of HIPAA relative to the role and responsibilities of the individual supervisor.
• Understand the concept of Up, Down, and Lateral communication in the organizational setting, describe and reinforce the individual supervisor's central role in organizational communication, and provide the means for strengthening the individual communication practices.
• Describe typical union-organizing drives and prepare the department supervisor for their role during such a drive; emphasize behavior that a supervisor can or cannot legally engage in during a drive; reinforce the supervisor's role as a communication link between the organization and the individual employee.