Importance of Laws and Ethics in Healthcare Project Management Assignment Sample

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Implementing Laws and Ethics in Healthcare Management: A Case Study on Queensland Health

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Project Purpose

The primary purpose of the project is to explain the importance of the laws and ethics in healthcare management. The healthcare authority must maintain proper laws and ethics to enhance their business value, and provide the best quality treatment to all patients without any discrimination. Financial risk can also increase the customer's attrition rate and lower the profits and marketing sales of the organization’s business.

The strategic risks generate if the organization's project includes poor project management processes, a higher employee retention rate and an unhealthy workplace culture. The projects faced several delivery challenges including ineffective projects managements and portfolio, limited project data and metrics, and a lack of skilled resources. Even if there are numerous issues during the project execution period, the study developers tried to complete the research within the deadline so that the report can be published on time. The report will provide the healthcare organisation with an opportunity to understand all UK laws and ethics in her management.

1 Process to Date

The organisation can anytime change their business policies and strategy by maintaining all ethics and legal norms to enhance business performance and improve workplace culture. Clinical ethics will be maintained if the management shares all their ideas and business strategic plans with their employees to know their opinions. The policy’s guidelines and norms that are affecting the emotional state, work culture, and employee performance must be replaced with a new policy that will resolve all issues.

2 Project Objectives and Outcomes

The main objective of the project is to develop a well-researched business case study for “contemporary health management” with all authentic legal data and information. The project illustrates all legal norms, guidelines, and ethics that healthcare professionals must maintain during treating patients. The study includes authentic information that will support the CEQ strategy map and the business operational plan of Queensland Health. The study also aims to make all healthcare professionals understand the clinical ethics to provide all patients with equal treatment and to maintain a good relationship with other employees at the workplace. Maintaining a trustworthy and healthy relationship with patient parties and co-workers in a healthcare organization will help to enhance the business value, and profitability and will also improve the workplace culture.

Strategic Alignment

The project objectives are aligned with Queensland Health’s long and short terms goals and current business operational plans. The legal norms and ethics in healthcare will help the organization to improve its business success rates and will also enhance its ability to address all its stakeholders’ expectations and needs. The project alignment with business strategies has highlighted the significant increment in the company’s financial performance and success rates of all its business projects (Roberts et al. 2021). “CEQ Strategy Map” is referred to as the primary step in establishing a strategic scorecard for contemporary healthcare management. In healthcare management, the strategy map helps in presenting the transformation processes of intangible assets within the “material financial effects”.

The project includes clear objectives with desired outcomes, and critical project parameters including “financial commitments, stakeholder readiness, project complexity, and availability of resources”. As the study includes the data on funding that the organization need by its financial year it supports the “CEQ Strategy Map” and business operation plan (Enshaeifar et al. 2018). The project planner and manager are monitoring the project’s progress and authenticity of data, which include the information regarding availability and capability of staff resources, the details of ownership and the responsibilities of the company’s internal and external stakeholders.

The study also includes a brief analysis of the risk and benefits that the healthcare sector will receive from the legal and ethical norms and guidelines. The major impacts of the identified risks and benefits on organization health management are discussed in the achievability section of this report.

The outcome of the “CEQ Strategy Map” depicts the achievement of sustainable financial performance into a proper framework of “internal control of governance, revenue rationing, and risk management” (Sabatello et al. 2020). The major strategic objectives that the company should have to enhance its business value and operations plan are stated below:

Managing all uncertain risks affects both operational and enterprise levels to maintain work ethics.
The utilization of innovative and creative business strategies in order to complement all current sales can help in strategic management.
Actions plan to make investment decisions that can be undertaken in a commercial way by an experienced and potential project manager.
Providing premium quality service to all patients by keeping the treatment cost affordable.
Secure “long-term tenure”, improving customer service to enhance business opportunities at the international level.
Engaging both internal and external stakeholders to conduct open forums and public meetings.
The company must utilise community feedback through patient surveys for its constant business growth and development.

Benefit Analysis

Project Objective

Performance Measure

Baseline Performance

Target Performance

Target Date

To implement effective laws and ethics in healthcare management of Queensland Health.

The level of improvements in the organization's business performance can be measured through 3 main ethical aspects of “modernized medical practice” including clinical competence. Another ethic of maintaining patients’ needs is primacy in terms of external pressures in the changing political, social, and economic environment of the organization.

Ethics in health management will also provide the hospital authority with the necessity of maintaining good relationships with all its patients and employees and will also guide in all decisions making processes during any project. Ethics and laws guide healthcare management with core principles of doing what is correct for patients' health improvements. It is also vital for healthcare management to look into the performance and needs of all healthcare professionals and people of the local community.

The present level of performance of the organization highlights that it provides its employees and patients with specialist services. The services referrals of the company include “Pelvic Mesh Services” for clinicians, “Queensland Eating Disorder Service” (QuEDS), Heart failure services, and “Persistent pain in management services”. Ethics and several legal norms also help the organisation to arrange various effective healthcare programs for benefit of its healthcare professionals and patients. Presently, the organization is also providing specialized “Palliative Rural Telehealth service” and mental health and deafness statewide liaison and consultation services.

Incorporation of ethics and laws in healthcare management enhances business profitability, and value, strengthen customer base, fulfill all expectations and demands of stakeholders like customers, professional staffs, and the legal sector who are associated with the organization's business.

Ethics and legal guidelines are very essential as every individual in the organization has their own personal morals and ethics. It is also necessary for healthcare management as caregivers must recognise all dilemmas in the healthcare setting. Ethics usually allow the project manager or the healthcare leaders to take proper decisions and judgments regarding their values. The ethics at work are maintained by all professionals in the healthcare sector by keeping within the laws that usually govern all company’s policies.

The ethics and laws also target to enhance the higher rate of staff engagement and build an effective communication and collaboration channel within the management so that the professionals can communicate about their projects' progress and goals with other co-health workers.

The laws and ethics must be implemented and become effective within Six to twelve months.

Risk Analysis

Risk analysis is a tool used in a healthcare organization to prevent risk beforehand. The risk analysis technique for Queensland Health is discussed below. In the case of risk management, the company needs to identify the threat first and then prioritize the risk. The company can create an appropriate risk management plan by hiring risk management professionals or providing proper education and training. The company can be proactive, can inherit an agile approach, operate within its means, prioritize productive projects, quantify the risk effects, and encourage communication.

Risks	Likelihood	Consequence	Management Strategy
Performance Risks: Performance risks occur based on the overall project performance. Underachieved product quality, inability to deliver the desired services and a few other external threats can be counted as performance risks.	The likelihood of performance risk is moderate. This type of risk can occur sometimes.	Missed deadlines and deliverables or outdated market research can take place in case the risk is not prioritized by the company. Severe patient injury can be a result if the quality of the service is not supervised but rather improved. This can lead to dissatisfaction from patient parties. The management team can create inconveniences on healthcare premises. In case there is a failure at the management level then employee dissatisfaction can also be a probable consequence.	Healthcare organizations are mainly concerned with patient care. The main priority of Queensland health’s service is to provide high-quality patient care. It will secure a good reputation for the company in the market. The management can take care of the supply chain of materials associated with the medical purpose. The strategy of managing the unavailability of medicines can be helpful in mitigating this risk (Zakaria et al. 2019). The company can deal with this issue by maintaining the stock of its materials in excess of its current demand. In case of any fault that happens from the company’s side, the company can offer a patient-grievance system. Resource management is another important required skill in the organization. Labour and financial resources are to be balanced appropriately by the management. There is a necessity for thorough market research before introducing any new project. Employees are the most important part of any business. To increase the quality of service there is a demand for the retention of highly skilled employees (Guerra et al. 2021). The management can make proper communication with the employees to identify their needs. The management of the company can find highly skilled employees by that and the organization needs to ensure their retention. Energized and skilled workforce will definitely provide the business progress. An important characteristic of healthcare organizations is to have well-educated and trained medical staff and well-qualified doctors. Since 2015, there has been seen an increase of 38.1% in nurses and 39.2% in doctors. Well-compensated employees are required to ensure job satisfaction and to improve the effectiveness of the employees. In order to avoid or reduce customer dissatisfaction the company may give a look at the customer care sector. In case any inconveniences or any allegation come from the side of the patient parties the company requires a legal adviser. This company can aim to achieve a creative commons certificate for becoming experts in creating and engaging people with openly licensed work. There are several external hazards as well, for example, the sudden occurrence of new diseases like covid-19. The company can keep a disaster management team active for sudden arrivals of emergency situations.
Financial Risks: Financial risks include the monetary factors of the organization. It can include the high price of budget of the materials (Asad, Haide & Fatima, 2018). Failure to secure the necessary funding is also a risk event. Lower sales than expected sales numbers or higher labor and time requirement are also financial risk factors. The company can suffer from major budget overages.	This type of risk can occur quite often in any business including the healthcare business.	Bankruptcy is the biggest consequence of the inability to deal with financial risk events (Iavicoli et al. 2018). In case the proper funding is not secured for the projects, the projects can not meet the demands of patient parties or other clients.	The Project budget is the main constraint in executing any new project. A project that demands an over budget can affect the whole company’s service (Meshkov, Bezmelnitsyna & Cherkasov, 2020). The company can look at making a business plan within its capability. Patient care can not be compromised with any other service provided by the company. Proper planning of expenses is also required in the management team otherwise there is a probability of overinvestment in projects. The company can hire well-qualified accountants to balance the budgets of previous projects and upcoming projects. As there is a high risk of bankruptcy the management team can consult finance experts before taking any bank loan.
Strategic Risks: Strategic risks involve the strategies that are chosen to complete the projects. This is concerned with employee satisfaction, project management techniques, investment, and many other aspects. The risks are failure of a health scheme, and an unhealthy environment in the workplace.	Strategic risks are high in the healthcare sector.	In case the health schemes got rejected by the customers consistently, that will affect the service of Queensland Health. It can demotivate the employees which can lead to dissatisfaction.	The company can come up with some organizational changes. Changes in the directorial team can bring new philosophies and new priorities and funding as well (Rouhani & Asadi, 2020). A proper market assessment is needed to find out what are the current demands from healthcare organizations. It can be studied properly to produce effective projects. The decision-makers need to invest their priority in potential projects. If it is possible the leaders of the organization need to encourage communication among all levels of employees to avoid employee dissatisfaction. Regular motivation can be provided to the subordinates by the higher authority to keep the workforce energized. A learning facility is required in the workplace to increase the capabilities of the medical staff. Mental health is an underrated sector in the medical field. After the Covid period, its importance has increased, and the company can offer effective services associated with mental health.

Table 1: Risk analysis

(Source: Self-created)

Achievability

The project achievability has been set for the benefit of the Queensland Health business operation and employee engagement rates. The major risks that are identified in the business operation plan include “performance risks, financial risks, and strategic risks”. The benefits that the organization can get from ethics and laws implementation are modernization, advancement and innovation in medical treatments, and clinical competence. The performance risks take place on the basis of the entire project's actions, processes, and resource implementations. The risk includes several major elements the unavailability of human resources and medical needs like beds, technological advancement, and proper legal policies and medical insurance. The identified risks in healthcare treatment can enhance business threats to the organization and restrict the opportunity in international markets. Financial risks that the company faced during the project's execution period and business operations include factors like monetary factors including higher budget pricing of the required resources. Financial risk can also increase the customer's attrition rate and lower the profits and marketing sales of the organization’s business. The strategic risks generate if the organization's project includes poor project management processes, a higher employee retention rate and an unhealthy workplace culture.

The critical project parameters that the study developers have taken into consideration for the successful completion of the project include “financial commitments, stakeholder readiness, project complexity, and availability of resources”.

The ethics and laws in healthcare mangemnts include several financial commitments such as risk reduction and enhancement of financial stability with improved business planning and insights. Other financial commitments include detecting fraud and fund misuse both internally and externally. Simplification of “third-party payments” and improvement of cash flow can also reduce the financial risks. The financial risks of healthcare can also be reduced by negotiating with the best vendor contracts and decreasing the issues of the supply chain.

The major stakeholders in the healthcare sector include patients, service providers institutions authorities and health professionals policymakers, and payors. In this medical industry media, the research community, and regulators also play vital roles to enhance business value, profitability, and productivity within a short time period. The major role of the stakeholders like caregivers including doctors, clinical technicians, and nurses to take proper decisions during treatment that respect and value the patients’ expectations and needs.

During the project's execution period all essential resources like authentic data, project manager, efficient team members, and funds, must be present in the correct amount. The delivery process of the required resources at the time of project execution must be quick and effective. The resources generally comprise money, facilities, people, time, tools and equipment, fixed assets, pharmaceuticals, and data or information that has been gathered through surveys and interviews.

Funding

The funds that the healthcare management projects required annually can be set as around $10 billion dollars yearly. Among the budget, the human resources are estimated to $50,000, materials and equipment to be nearly $40,000, and technology used tools to be nearly $75,000.

Staff Resources

Resources	Availability	Capability
Project Manager	High	High
Researchers	Medium	High
Health professionals	High	High
Patients	Medium	low

Governance and Accountability

The chief executive officer and business operating officers can execute all projects regarding the health management projects of this healthcare sector. The major role of the project manager is to make all team members understand teh exact purpose of the project (biogenericpublishers, 2022). The primary purpose of the projects is to implement effective laws and ethics in the organization to enhance the business value, profitability, and productivity as well as strengthen the customer base. A good workplace culture will provide the organization with several opportunities to expand its business both in national and international markets.

The researchers play a major role in this project as they are provided with the responsibility to collect authentic data and information from various sources like annual reports, interviews and surveys. Healthcare professionals are asked several questions regarding their work experiences and experience with their patients. The study developers usually prepare reports on the basis of the answers of healthcare professionals (ncbi.nlm, 2022). The patients are also asked for their feedback which is recorded by the study developers to research further this topic in the future. The patients’ feedback also helps the researchers to understand the business strategy, the services and the effectiveness of the healthcare organization.

The complexity of the Problem or Solution

Several problems are faced by the study developers during the execution period of the project that can be resolved by maintaining legal norms and ethics of health management. The project achievability has been set for the benefit of the Queensland Health business operation and employees contributing to the company’s business growth and development. The common risks that are identified in the business operation plan include “performance risks, financial risks, and strategic risks” (st-patricks, 2022). The healthcare management of the organization must maintain proper laws and ethics to enhance their business value, and provide the best quality treatment to all patients without any discrimination. The projects faced several delivery challenges including ineffective projects managements and portfolio, limited project data and metrics, and a lack of skilled resources.

Constraints and Dependencies

Several inter-related projects that the company have dealt with previously include “Health practitioner research, and Forensic and scientific services' research priorities” (health.qld, 2022). Other important projects that the company has gained success include the “ATHENA COVID-19 study and COVID-19 vaccine research program”. Another vital research that the company has conducted was “Clinical trials and research at Pathology Queensland”.

Impacts

Area of Impact

Nature of Impact

Who Will be Impacted

Company’s healthcare policies

High

Internal stakeholders include managers, leaders, employees, healthcare professionals, suppliers, customers, contractors, shareholders, marketers, and dealers.

The constant change in company policies will also impact external stakeholders like the local community, banks, and legal bodies associated with the company’s projects.

Risk management process

High

The common risks that are identified in the business operation plan include “performance risks, financial risks, and strategic risks”. Implementation of laws and ethics will helps to resolve the risks of conflict that may arise from inequality and discrimination issues.

Recommendations

The main objective of the project is to develop a well-researched business case study for “contemporary health management” with all authentic legal data and information. The project illustrates all legal norms and guidelines and ethics that healthcare professionals must maintain during treating patients (michaelskenny, 2022). The study includes authentic information that will support the CEQ strategy map and the business operational plan of Queensland Health.
Effective laws and ethics will help the hospital authority to enhance its business value, increase its market shares, and makes profits through business operations across the globe (jamanetwork, 2022). Financial risk can also increase the customer's attrition rate and lower the profits and marketing sales of the organization’s business.
The strategic risks generate if the organization's project includes poor project management processes, a higher employee retention rate and an unhealthy workplace culture. It can be recommended that if the company wants to raise their market share can recruit well-trained and experienced conflict managers so that all conflicts in the workplace can be resolved.
Healthcare organizations are mainly concerned with patient care so the main priority of Queensland health is to provide all its patients with equal treatment regardless of their caste, creed, religion, sex, gender, age, culture, and socio-economic background (ceqld.org.au, 2022). The management can take care of the supply chain of materials associated with the medical purpose.
The strategy of managing the unavailability of medicines can be helpful in mitigating the business performance risk. The company can deal with this issue by maintaining the stock of its materials in excess of its current demand (ceqld.org.au, 2022). The workplace culture of the hospital can also be improved by providing all healthcare professionals with proper training and implementing modernized and advanced technologies in the treatment of patients and recruitment of professionals.

Websites

ceqld.org.au, (2022), CEQ Strategic Plan, Retrieved from: https://www.ceqld.org.au/app/uploads/2021/02/Strategic-Plan-2018-22.pdf [Retrieved on: 28th October, 2022]
jamanetwork, (2022), Ethical Aspects of Clinical Practice, Retrieved from: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/390481 [Retrieved on: 28th October, 2022]
michaelskenny, (2022), Five Project Delivery Challenges, Retrieved from: https://michaelskenny.com/points-of-view/five-challenges-to-successful-delivery-of-health-care-projects/ [Retrieved on: 28th October, 2022]
health.qld, (2022), The Queensland Health and Hospitals Plan, Retrieved from: https://www.health.qld.gov.au/system-governance/health-system/key-people [Retrieved on: 28th October, 2022]
st-patricks, (2022), An overview of the legal and ethical issues in healthcare, Retrieved from: https://www.st-patricks.ac.uk/blog/posts/2019/october/an-overview-of-the-legal-and-ethical-issues-in-healthcare/ [Retrieved on: 28th October, 2022]
ncbi.nlm, (2022), Teaching seven principles for public health ethics, Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4196023/ [Retrieved on: 28th October, 2022]
biogenericpublishers, (2022), Strategy Map – Concept, Retrieved from: https://biogenericpublishers.com/pdf/JBGSR.MS.ID.00259.pdf [Retrieved on: 28th October, 2022]