Key Tools and Techniques in Management and Leadership of the Allied Health Professions

Robert Jones, Fiona Jenkins

• Verlag: CRC Press
• Jahr: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780429533396
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Business
• Thema: Service Industry

The Allied Health Professions - Essential Guides series is unique in providing advice on management, leadership and development for those in the Allied Health Professions (AHP). This highly practical volume offers a wide range of assessment tools and techniques in such critical areas as management quality, organisational and management structure, benchmarking, capacity and demand management, care pathway design, activity analysis, report writing and presentation skills. The layout is conducive to easy comprehension; tables, figures and boxed text aid quick reference and everyday application, and many of the resources are also provided on a complimentary CD. With contributions from internationally renowned professionals Key tools and techniques in management and leadership of the allied health professions provides tools that will be vital to all allied health professionals interested in providing timely, efficient and cost-effective care for their patients. These will include AHP managers and aspiring managers, senior clinicians, extended scope practitioners, clinical specialists, AHP educators, researchers, staff and students. 'The NHS is facing the greatest period of challenge in its history. The key to success is leadership. Allied Health Professionals will be a central part of this leadership response. In this work, Robert and Fiona continue their series supporting Allied Health Professionals in that leadership journey. It is an important contribution to this critical effort.' From the Foreword by Jim Easton

CHAPTER 1
Allied Health Professions’ Management Quality Matrix

Fiona Jenkins and Robert Jones

INTRODUCTION

If quality and excellence are to be at the heart of service provision and the goals that AHP managers strive to achieve for their services, it is essential to be able to measure performance. In order to determine whether we are achieving management quality, it is necessary to establish whether there is alignment between performance, strategy, vision, and desired outcomes.

In this chapter, we set out our Management Quality Matrix (MQM), which we have designed for the purpose of evaluating a wide range of performance parameters. The Matrix was developed in the context of management quality and strategy drawing on a range of concepts such as performance management, ‘Lean’, Six Sigma, balanced scorecard, ‘dashboards’, TQM, and benefits realisation. We recommend that the use of IM&T is integral to accurate, timely, and relevant measurement for Matrix components, although the evaluation can also be undertaken with paper-based information. Measurement is essential to enable meaningful evaluation to take place. We also draw on the management quality, industrial, and healthcare excellence work developed at INSEAD.¹, ², ³ Also incorporated within the design of the Matrix are ideas from the work of contributors to this series⁴, ⁵, ⁶ together with our own accumulated knowledge, experience, and research over many years.

The Matrix, which is set out later in this chapter, comprises 14 standards, each incorporating several components broadly reflecting the six dimensions of management quality:

1. communication
2. participation
3. employee development
4. measurement
5. delegation
6. integration

The Matrix will enable AHP managers not simply to engage in ‘box ticking’ exercises, but rather to measure using metrics indicative of progress toward value and responsiveness for patients. The evaluation facilitates best possible clinical outcomes, efficiency, effectiveness, and optimal resource use whilst acknowledging and using national targets, but not merely being subservient to these. Targets are not goals in themselves; value for the patient is the goal. An important objective of using the Matrix is the improvement of performance in all fields of activity within service management; it will enable managers to identify the need to design and implement processes and initiate effective change. The evaluation can be used for performance management as a useful measure to ensure understanding of true performance and as a comparison through time for continuous improvement as well as internal benchmarking. As an external benchmarking process, it can be used to draw performance comparisons between provider organisations. It may also be used for supporting the management process as an ad hoc service review tool and might also be useful to use in conjunction with our Service Review Assessment of AHP management structures.⁴

Developing strategy and measuring performance requires participation at all levels. For the achievement of success, actions or activities need to be aligned. It may be helpful to ask ourselves a number of key questions:

• is everyone in the team ‘pulling’ in the same direction?
• does the direction benefit the patient?
• are there baseline measures?
• are we measuring so that we know whether we are improving or not?
• do staff have the training and motivation to provide value and bring about improvement?
• are tensions around fear of change recognised and managed?
• are problems/mistakes treated as opportunities to improve?

Our Matrix is not only an annual measurement assessment; it can be used to support management quality development throughout the year, assessing progress in strategy and operational developments.

It is not our purpose here to discuss management theories in detail, but an overview of some key definitions and concepts are outlined in order to place the Matrix in context.

METRICS

The term ‘metrics’ relates to standards of measurement through which efficiency, performance, progress, quality of a process, plan, or product is assessed. Examples of these measures, or ‘metrics...