Fundamentals of Hospital Management

This document serves as a resource guide on the fundamentals of hospital management, such as communication, improving as a manager, and setting reasonable goals for your facility. In addition, there are links to free resources throughout the document to expand on points made in the guide.

Communication Resources

When managing a group of individuals, whether it is in a particular department or an entire hospital facility, there are several tools you can put in your toolbox for future use. Even with experience and practice, taking on this kind of responsibility can be overwhelming. There are several resources linked below for creating a solid foundation for communication and addressing concerns within your team:

• Having Difficult Conversations/Conflict Resolution– By adequately preparing for difficult conversations, you are putting yourself in a much better position to work out issues. In addition, finding the right setting, providing hard facts, checking in with HR, and keeping your conversations confidential are ways to gain trust from the other person and deter further conflicts and difficult conversations with them.
• Difficult Conversations with Employees: 9 Crucial Rules to Remember
• 5 Tips for Managing Difficult Conversations with Employees
• Interacting With Different Demographics– There are communication differences cross-culturally and across different age groups, genders, races, religions, and ethnicities. Learning how to best address concerns and hold a regular conversation with a diverse group of individuals contributes to a team’s communication effectiveness.
• Communicating Cross-Culturally
• Communicating With Generational Diversity
• Communicating Across Races/Ethnicities
• Communicating Cross-Religiously
• Motivating Your Team– Your team is unlikely to reach their full potential if they are unmotivated. As a manager, find ways to eliminate dissatisfaction to create satisfaction.
• Motivating Your Team- Energizing Your People to Achieve Good Things
• How to Be the Best Manager: Motivating Your Team
• Actively listening- The ability to listen actively rather than passively serves managers by helping to build relationships with their colleagues and staff, earning trust, compromising, solving conflicts, and demonstrating that you care.
• Active Listening and Why Managers Need It
• Being Transparent with Your Employees– Transparency in the workplace is key to building trust between management and employees. As a result, problems are solved faster, there is more employee engagement, and your team will be more aligned when everyone is informed.
• 4 Reasons You Need to Embrace Transparency in the workplace
• The Importance of Transparency in Leadership—What You Need to Know
• Empathy and Sensitivity– Being sensitive to your employees’ emotional needs and personal situations builds a culture of trust and respect. Along with understanding your employees better, empathy in the workplace is positively correlated to job performance.
• Managers’ Display of Empathy as a Stimulant for Employee Motivation
• The Importance of Empathy in the Workplace

Improving As a Manager

Good managers constantly look for ways to improve themselves and their management style, seek feedback from their employees and higher-ups, and develop new skills to bring to their meetings. Here are 10 Characteristics of an Effective Manager, Soft Skills You Need As a Good Manager, and How to Be a Better Manager: 11 Tips.

• Practicing Consistency and Reliability– Managers must be predictable in that they are consistently reliable. When a manager is consistent, it is much easier for them to require and expect their employees to be consistent and reliable.
• The Power of Consistency in Leadership
• 12 Elements of Effective Reliability Management
• Managing “Up”– When a manager’s “upper” is facing personal challenges, unusually busy, or having an off day, stepping up to the plate is an essential display of your competence as a manager. Generally, the flow of communication in a hierarchy is down, but sometimes the flow from your position can go to your higher-up(s). Build a solid relationship with your supervisor(s) and use your relationship to anticipate their needs effectively.
• Managing Up-How to Lead When You are Not the Boss
• Gaining Trust– By treating your employees as people (rather than numbers), admitting mistakes, overcoming personal biases, and giving credit when it is due, you as the manager gain trust from your employees. Without trust between supervisors and their teams, there is no adequate model for feedback. Gaining trust does not happen overnight, but it can create a positive work culture with the right tools and communication.
• 7 Ways Managers Can Gain Trust in the Workplace
• Making Decisions and Accepting Responsibility– By taking responsibility for decisions you have made for yourself and on behalf of your team, you are putting yourself on the line for your employees and your ability to perform well as a leader.
• Taking Responsibility is the Highest Mark of Great Leaders
• Helping People Take Responsibility
• Keeping Up your Enthusiasm– Talent seeks out other talents. Bringing out the best in your team and conveying your passion for your work is essential to providing a positive work environment and culture.
• 12 Ways to Be the Leader Everyone Wants to Work for
• Hospital Management Courses– Seek out webinars, seminars, classes, and courses you can attend to become a better leader, manager, and member of your team.

Goal Setting

• Top-Down Goal Setting– Figuring out which goals are the right goals, how to translate department goals into hospital goals, and turning department goals into individual goals can be tricky. This is one of the most important jobs of a hospital administrator and manager, but by gathering data, designing goals that work for you and your hospital, and soliciting feedback from your teams, it can be done.
• Top-Down Goal Setting for Hospitals
• How to Choose the Right Goals for Your Hospital
• Rewarding and Recognizing Employees– When one of your team members does something worth recognition, inform them of their impact on the outcome of your hospital, team, or on whichever project you were working. This improves confidence and lets your team know you appreciate their efforts.
• 33 Best Appreciation Messages for Employee Recognition
• Recognizing and Rewarding Your Staff
• Holding Staff Accountable– Accountability is key to achieving the results you want for your hospital. Other facets of the facility may suffer when it is lacking, including your work culture, morale, and hospital performance. Below are resources on how to hold your staff accountable, such as establishing expectations and boundaries:
• Holding Employees Accountable: Where Most Leaders Fail
• 11 Tips for Holding Your Employees Accountable (2021)
• Delegation– For a leader, sometimes delegating tasks can seem daunting if you want eyes on everything that happens in your facility. This is where the trust you have in your team steps into the picture.
• Learn How to Delegate, So You, as a Manager, Can Explore Greater Pursuits
• The 10 Rules of Successful Delegation

Additional Resources:

• Lumen has a free, online, 15-module Business Communication Skills for Managers course that covers communicating in business, written communication, research, visual media, report writing, public speaking, business presentations, communication through technology, using social media, collaborating, social diversity, and recruitment.
• 9 Important Hospital Management Tips
• 5 Tough Situations You Will Eventually Face When Managing People