Roles and Functions Essay Example for Free

Roles and Functions Essay Management is important in any environment, but especially so in the healthcare field. As the health care system continues to evolve, sound management is critical to the survival of health care institutions (Johnson, 2005). The management team in a healthcare environment must always aim to improve the efficiency of the day to day activities and constantly plan for ways to improve the productivity and efficiency. Every manager’s main duty is to succeed in helping the organization achieve high performance while utilizing all of the organization’s human and material resources. On a daily basis health care managers must recognize performance problems and opportunities, make good decisions, and take appropriate action (Lombardi and Schermerhorn, 2007). There are four major functions in healthcare management, they are; planning, organizing, controlling the use of resources, and leading to accomplish performance goals. In my previous position, I was a manager over seven associates. Even though I technically was over that small group of people, I was still a manager in the store and often had people from other departments coming to me with issues. All of the major functions played a definite role in my day to day activities. Planning was usually the first step of the day. I would look at everything as a whole and make sure I was including everything that would be important for the day. Organizing almost went hand in hand with planning. Once I knew everything that needed to be done for the day, I could then organize and prioritize everything accordingly. Being organized is a very important; if you are unorganized there is a greater chance of tasks being forgotten or not being finished in a timely manner. Controlling the resources is something I dealt with every day. I was responsible for the ordering of the department; if I was out of a certain product and a customer came in for it, that was a problem. Also being responsible for my human resources was a daily problem, if my people weren’t doing what they were supposed to in a timely manner, then that would throw off my whole day. Lastly, leading to accomplish goals is something everyone strives for. Leading by example is also important, I felt like if I did not work alongside my people, I could not expect them to work. Showing my associates how to work together and address any issues immediately is important to leading my team and accomplish the ultimate goal. The management team in the healthcare environment has a very important role within their facility. There are ten managerial roles that fall within three categories. The three categories are: interpersonal roles, informational roles, and decisional roles. â€Å"A manager’s interpersonal roles involve interactions with people inside and outside the work unit. The information roles involve the giving, receiving, and analyzing of information. The decisional roles involve using information to make decisions, to solve problems, to address opportunities† (Lombardi Schermerhorn, 2007. P. 13). Interpersonal roles involve interactions with people inside and outside the unit. Informational roles of a health care manager involve giving, receiving, and analyzing information. Finally, the decisional roles of a health care manger involve using information for decision making, problem solving, and addressing opportunities (Lombardi Schermerhorn, 2007. P. 13). Of all these different roles, I believe the most important role is the interpersonal role. The interactions between the people inside and outside the unit are an important base. Making sure all of your associates work together and let you know about any issues is important, because if any of that gets out of sync, the rest will as well. In this class, I hope to gain more information on all the roles that are necessary for a good healthcare manager. With everything I hope to learn in this course, I can apply it to my future career as a healthcare administrator. References Johnson, S. W. (2005, April-June). Characteristics of effective health care managers. Health Care Manager, 24(2), 124-128. Lombardi, D. M., Schermerhorn, J. R. (2007). Health care management: Tools and techniques for managing in a health care environment. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley Sons.