Organizational Structures in the Clinical Environment
The effectiveness of corporate enterprises depends on numerous factors, and one of the most important of them is the organizational structure. Essentially, the way responsibilities are distributed among employees in the company directly affects its operations and internal processes. There are several organizational structures which are extensively utilized by enterprises around the world, and the four main ones are functional, service line, matrix, and flat. At the same time, each of these structures can also be successfully applied in the sphere of healthcare in a clinical environment.
Fig. 1: Functional Organizational Structure
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Functional organizational structure provides organizations with a clearly defined hierarchy which must significantly facilitate operations. The hierarchy consists of different levels, where employees are grouped in terms of their skills, roles in the organization, and specialty (Duncan et al., 2018). The standard name for each hierarchical level is the department which is governed by a certain leader. The entire structure also has one main leader, who is usually called a chief executive officer and who is tasked with overseeing the organization and work of different departments within it. The primary advantage of the functional structure is clearly defined role distribution and well-defined boundaries, which contributes to the high level of expertise of every department. Functional organizational structure is the one which is used in many clinical environments, including in the hospital I work for. The mission statement of functional organizations can be the following: “We are committed to delivering a wide variety of healthcare services of the highest quality to all patients.” The statement reflects the fact that although functional organizations are grouped into departments with clearly-defined responsibilities, they deliver comprehensive care to patients.
Fig. 2: Service Line Structure
The service line is another organizational structure which is commonly used in the clinical setting since it delivers effective results to hospitals. The service line structure does not rely on departments but rather on actual service lines which simultaneously include financial, operational, and strategic aspects (Daft, 2020). Service line structures are often utilized by larger organizations which need to address certain inefficiencies of their services (Duncan et al., 2018). In the sphere of healthcare, service line organizations are based on providing services to patients who share the same attributes. For instance, there can be service line organizations targeting the needs of clients requiring inpatient or outpatient care or those who have conditions belonging to the Major Disease Categories. Thus, service lines tend to have a particular scope of operation addressing the specific needs of patients. For instance, there can be a cardiovascular service line which provides all basic services in the field of cardiology. The structure in question can be characterized by the following mission statement: “We are dedicated to providing professional and specialized healthcare services for people with cardiovascular conditions.” The mission statement highlights the ability to deliver specialized care by the organization due to its narrow scope.
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Fig. 3: Matrix Organizational Structure
Matrix is also a viable organizational structure which many healthcare organizations employ and successfully implement in the clinical setting. Matrix is a structure which integrates both the function and product, moreover, the latter is the end result of the former (Daft, 2020). Instead of pursuing only the standard rigid hierarchy, matrix enables organizations to superimpose a horizontal management structure over the vertical one. Essentially, the matrix is based on dual authority relationships where subordinates have two leaders to repo