CAPSTONE PROJECT
Running head: CAPSTONE PROJECT
CAPSTONE PROJECT 2
Capstone Project
Andrea Ware
MBA-FPX 5910: MBA Capstone Experience.
Assessment 4: Capstone Project
May, 2020
Table of Contents Executive Summary 4 Introduction 6 Opportunity for Improvement 7 The Business: Kaiser Permanente 7 Background and Current State 7 Importance of Managing the Issue for the Organization 8 Role of Diversity Management in the Healthcare Industry 9 Current Approaches to Diversity Management 10 Strategic Analysis 11 SWOT Analysis 11 VRIO Analysis 13 PESTEL Analysis 13 Political factors 14 Economic factors 14 Social factors 14 Technology 14 Legal factors 14 Environmental factors 15 Business Opportunity 15 Diversity Training 15 Implementation 17 Ethical Considerations 19 Respect for Individuals 20 Privacy & Confidentiality 20 Leadership and Collaboration Aspects 21 Problem-Solving 21 Build Relationships 21 Thinking Creatively and Strategically 21 Conclusion 22 Recommendations 22
Executive Summary
The project seeks to provide a strategic analysis of how the organization can take advantage of its workforce to improve the quality of service delivery to the increasingly diverse customer base. It is founded on the recognition of how diversity management contributes a lot to value-based healthcare delivery. Ultimately, diversity training will help lower costs and maximize outcomes for patients, ensure higher patient satisfaction and better care efficiencies for Kaiser Permanente, and reduced healthcare spending combined with better overall health for the communities served. The program will augment the organization’s efforts to build and manage a diverse as well as a culturally competent workforce. The overall strategy entails conducting a study on the benefits of a high-quality diversity training program, especially one designed and administered online.
The strategic analysis shows how the organization can take advantage of its workforce to improve the quality of service delivery to an increasingly diverse customer base. It is also demonstrated that Kaiser Permanente can take advantage of its diverse workforce to improve the quality of service delivery to the increasingly diverse customer base through diversity training. Diversity management will contribute a lot to value-based healthcare delivery. Ultimately, the program will help lower costs and maximize outcomes for patients, ensure higher patient satisfaction and better care efficiencies, and reduce healthcare spending combined with better overall health for the communities served by Kaiser Permanente.
Based on the findings of the study, recommendations that focus on the creation of an organization capable of meeting the diverse needs of all stakeholders will be provided. Ultimately, the project will result in the recommendation for the implementation of a company-wide diversity training program. However, before the implementation of a full-scale program, as recommended by Jacobs et al. (2017), a pilot program will be rolled out to a multidisciplinary sample of 100 employees at the organization.
Introduction
Kaiser Permanente was founded in 1945 by Henry J. Kaiser (an industrialist) and Sidney Garfield (a physician). It is an integrated managed care consortium that is based in Oakland, California, United States. Kaiser Permanente operates as three distinct yet interdependent entities, such as Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. (KFHP), and the regional Permanente Medical Groups (Kaiser Permanente, n. d.). The organization’s mission entails providing high-quality care by continuously striving to improve care in line with the organization’s vision of being a leader in total health, primarily through efforts meant to make lives better (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.).
The mission has been made possible with the help of more than 300,000 personnel, including over 80,000 physicians and nurses, that work in 39 hospitals operated by the organization as well as over 700 medical offices. Although the organization’s ratings for quality care have been high (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.), it has to contend with challenges linked to the diversity of not only its workforce but also the customers served. By the end of 2016, Kaiser Permanente reported that it had more than 60% of the total workforce as members of racial, ethnic, as well as cultural minorities. It was also reported that more than 73% of the organization’s workforce are women (Johnson, 2017).
The project seeks to provide a strategic analysis of how the organization can take advantage of its workforce to improve the quality of service delivery to the increasingly diverse customer base. For instance, the project provides a strategic analysis of how the organization can take advantage of its workforce to improve the quality of service delivery to an increasingly diverse customer base. It is founded on the recognition of how diversity management contributes a lot to value-based healthcare delivery.
Opportunity for Improvement
One of the key business opportunities that can enable the organization to achieve its mission of providing high-quality care and realize its vision of being a leader in total health is diversity management, which can be achieved by providing diversity training (Borkowski, 2015). Carr-Ruffino (2016) accentuates that the competitive advantage attributed to diversity management within today’s health care organizations cannot be underestimated because the organizations serve a highly diverse customer base nowadays. A high-quality diversity training program can be indispensable to the delivery of high-quality care to today’s increasingly diverse communities, chiefly since it would augment the organization’s efforts to build and manage a diverse as well as culturally competent workforce (Carr-Ruffino, 2016; Vanderbroeck & Wasserfallen, 2017).
The Business: Kaiser Permanente
Background and Current State
Kaiser Permanente is essentially a strategic partnership between three distinct yet interdependent entities, such as Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. (KFHP), and the regional Permanente Medical Groups. It provides health care plans and services that range from preventive care, emergency care, and screening diagnostics to prenatal care and immunization. Some of the organization’s priorities include community health support, care innovation, clinical research, and health education. Innovative ideas that Kaiser Permanente has embraced since its founding include prepayment, population-based approach to care, group practice, prevention/total health, and clinical information technology (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.).
It boasts of a workforce of more than 300,000 personnel, including over 80,000 physicians and nurses, that work in 39 hospitals operated by the organization as well as over 700 medical offices (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.). A study by Johnson (2017) reported that Kaiser has more than 60% of the total workforce as members of racial, ethnic, as well as cultural minorities. It was also reported that more than 73% of the organization’s workforce are women. The increasing diversity poses new challenges for the organization, ranging from
As noted above, the organization’s mission entails providing high-quality care by continuously striving to improve care, and this has been augmented by hiring, training, and retaining the right people that continue to help the firm make lives better. Currently, the focus of the management is on the management of the organization’s highly diverse population through the use of programs like GenKP, KPability, KP Asian Association (KPAA), and KP LatinX Association (KPLA). These programs have proven to be effective when it comes to enabling the company make the lives of its over 12 million members and approximately 300,000 employees and physicians better (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.).
Importance of Managing the Issue for the Organization
According to Taylor-Ford and Abell (2015), workplace diversity is a reality that healthcare organizations must contend with, especially since getting it right can be critical to efforts to create a workforce capable of delivering on the mission while enabling the organization to minimize the risk of violating employment laws, such as equal opportunity legislations. Understandably, effective management of diversity will play a critical role in enabling Kaiser Permanente to improve the productivity of its workforce, besides improved organizational efficiency and effectiveness linked to decreased conflicts and effective problem solving due to improved creativity and innovation. Kaiser Permanente can implement diversity training as an effective solution to workplace diversity challenges, such as poor accommodation of divergent values and beliefs, conflicts due to poor management of ethnic and cultural differences, poor communication, and poor appreciation of creativity and innovation attributed to the diversity of ideas and perspectives (Johnson, 2017; Vanderbroeck & Wasserfallen, 2017).
Ultimately, effective management of diversity translates to improved productivity of its workforce, besides improved organizational efficiency and effectiveness linked to decreased conflicts and effective problem solving due to improved creativity and innovation. Diversity training is seen as an effective way to augment the organization’s efforts to build and manage a diverse as well as culturally competent workforce capable of serving the United States’ highly diverse population (Carr-Ruffino, 2016; Vanderbroeck & Wasserfallen, 2017). The solution is evidence-based, and thus, the recommendations provided for implementation are evidence-based. This approach will improve the productivity of Kaiser Permanente’s workforce, besides improving organizational efficiency and effectiveness linked to decreased conflicts and effective problem solving due to improved creativity and innovation.
Role of Diversity Management in the Healthcare Industry
In 2004, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) reported that the number of employees associated with minority populations would increase due to how the number of minorities that was estimated at 27% of the U.S. population was projected to be ~37% in 2025. This has already been felt by healthcare organizations like Kaiser Permanente that must strive to ensure effective delivery of care to an increasingly diverse customer base. Creating and maintaining a diverse workforce was cited in a study by Carr-Ruffino (2016) as one of the strategies that organizations in the industry must consider. However, Taylor-Ford and Abell (2015) maintain that the implementation of this strategy requires organizations to consider diverse methods.
Carr-Ruffino (2016) accentuates that the competitive advantage attributed to diversity management within today’s health care organizations cannot be underestimated because the organizations serve a highly diverse customer base nowadays. Ultimately, diversity training, as one of the diversity management strategies, will help lower costs and maximize outcomes for patients, ensure higher patient satisfaction and better care efficiencies for Kaiser Permanente, and reduced healthcare spending combined with better overall health for the communities served. Taylor-Ford and Abell (2015) and Vanderbroeck and Wasserfallen (2017) recommend diversity management through diversity training as one of the strategies that organizations must consider to improve access to care for ethnic and racial minorities, besides enhancing patient-clinician communication and patient and employee satisfaction.
Current Approaches to Diversity Management
Kaiser Permanente focuses on transforming its workplaces into communities rather than providing diversity training. Some of the elements of diversity and inclusion efforts include GenKP, KPability, KP Asian Association (KPAA), and KP LatinX Association (KPLA). The programs are based on the acknowledgment of the fact that a competent and ethnically diverse and accepting workforce is critical to the delivery of western medicine (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.). Ensuring that a workforce is culturally competent is a daunting task for nearly every organization (Vanderbroeck & Wasserfallen, 2017). Kaiser Family Foundation uses the programs to improve the competence of its workforce and this explains why it is currently ranked 20th on the Fortune’s list of 100 best workplaces for diversity (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.).
GenKP is a program dedicated to providing employees with opportunities for networking, collaboration, as well as professional development and KPAA promotes professional development as well as culturally competent care. Kaiser Family Foundation empowers its employees with disabilities to optimize their talents as well as achieve their goals with KPability, and KP LatinX Association (KPLA) works by inspiring as well as empowering all employees associated with LatinX communities to achieve their full potential. It is by inspiring and empowering employees to achieve their full potential that Kaiser Permanente can drive performance and quality, particularly relative to the competition (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.).
Strategic Analysis
SWOT Analysis
Rothaermel (2017) asserts that the purpose of a SWOT analysis is to enable an organization to enhance its understanding of the internal and external environments based on the analysis of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Kaiser Permanente’s SWOT analysis can be beneficial in enabling the company utilize its strengths to address it weaknesses and exploit opportunities in order to address the threats.
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
| 1. Continued use of industry-leading expertise and advanced technology. 2. An integrated health care delivery system. 3. Improved patient outcomes due to innovation and use of advanced technologies. 4. Aligned structure and incentives. 5. Integrated information technology. 6. Strong brand name in the industry. | 1. Inadequate staff engagement as well as education. 2. Physician education & adherence to guideline. 3. Poor patient compliance with ordered medications. 4. Poor employee motivation and job satisfaction. 5. High employee turnover. 6. Inability to attract new patients. |
| Opportunities | Threats |
| 1. Diversity training to foster cultural competence. 2. Investment in research and development to foster innovation. 3. Investment in big data and analytics. 4. Artificial intelligence and robotics. 5. Expansion to underserviced areas across the country. | 1. Increasing competition (stiff competition). 2. Cost of healthcare is increasing. 3. Unintentional actions that diminish the quality of care. 4. Increasingly sophisticated cybercriminals (security breaches). |
VRIO Analysis
The VRIO (value, rarity, imitability, and organization) strategic framework is useful as a strategic analysis tool as it complements a SWOT analysis by providing an analysis of the internal environment of an organization in terms of the competitive advantage accrued to resources and competencies (Mazzei & Noble, 2017). Kaiser Permanente’s VRIO analysis (below) shows that Kaiser Permanente should focus more on its workforce (human resources) and leadership and HRM competencies to gain a competitive advantage.
| Resources/Competencies | Value | Rarity | Imitability | Organization | Competitive Advantage? |
| Brand Name | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Exploited |
| Workforce (Human Resources) | No | No | Yes | Yes | Unexploited |
| Marketing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Sustained |
| Leadership and HRM | No | Yes | No | No | Unexploited |
| Distribution Network | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Exploited |
PESTEL Analysis
Rothaermel (2017) accentuates that the purpose of a PESTEL analysis is to analyze a company’s external business environment, especially as it considers factors like political, economic, sociocultural, technological, ecological, and legal factors. Kaiser Permanente is affected by these factors, and thus, must strive to minimize their adverse impact on the organization.
Political factors
· The pressure to deliver high-quality, affordable, and value-driven care to all Americans from the political class (policymakers).
· America’s political stability provides a favorable business environment for the companies in nearly every industry.
Economic factors
· Inflation and interest rates impact the cost of healthcare delivery.
· Unemployment affects affordability, and thus, increases the number of uninsured Americans.
Social factors
· The growing presence of minority populations.
· The high number of Americans still impedes access to care without healthcare insurance; the number rose from 25.6 million in 2017 to 27.5 million in 2018.
Technology
· Technological innovation and effective integration of technology has allowed for automation of processes like billing and prescription.
· Technology can help minimize billing and other medical errors, including incidences of fraud in billing.
· E-learning has enhanced employee training.
Legal factors
· Health and safety laws impact how decisions are made within the modern-day healthcare system.
· Healthcare organizations must adhere to laws and regulations related to intellectual property.
· Privacy and confidentiality must be protected.
Environmental factors
· Healthcare organizations should prioritize sustainable business practices.
Business Opportunity
Based on the strategic analysis and background information on Kaiser Permanente, it is evident that the focus should be on the organization’s workforce (human resources) and leadership and HRM competencies to gain a competitive advantage. Hence, diversity management achieved through diversity training is essential to the achievement of the organization’s mission of providing high-quality care and realize its vision of being a leader in total health.
Diversity Training
Diversity training is seen as an organizational opportunity to manage the organization’s highly diverse workforce. It is based on the recognition of the fact that diversity management contributes a lot to value-based healthcare delivery. Ultimately, diversity training will help lower costs and maximize outcomes for patients, ensure higher patient satisfaction and better care efficiencies for Kaiser Permanente, and reduced healthcare spending combined with better overall health for the communities served, as discussed by Provost, Lanham, Leykum, McDaniel Jr, and Pugh (2015). Diversity training will allow Kaiser Permanente to:
· Become attractive and appealing to high-quality talent, especially as an inclusive employer,
· Ensure that all talents are represented through learning and development,
· Retains diverse talents while managing exits more effectively,
· Ensure that all employees are understood and trained for an improved onboarding experience,
· Promote talent progression and performance,
· Cater to all talents’ needs and expectations,
· Improve decision making since Larson (2017) reports that a diverse team makes the right decision 87% of the time.
Fig. 1: Impact of diversity on decision making (Larson, 2017)
A high-quality diversity training program can be indispensable to the delivery of high-quality care to today’s increasingly diverse communities, chiefly since it would augment the organization’s efforts to build and manage a diverse as well as culturally competent workforce (Carr-Ruffino, 2016; Vanderbroeck & Wasserfallen, 2017). Diversity management contributes a lot to value-based healthcare delivery. Diversity training as a business opportunity is an important component of the organization’s strategic workforce plan design to lower costs, and maximize outcomes for patients, guarantee higher patient satisfaction as well as improve care efficiencies. Other benefits cited by Provost et al. (2015) encompass reduced healthcare spending, combined with better overall health for the communities served.
Implementation
A high-quality diversity training program designed as well as administered online. Emphasis will be placed on equipping the employees with skills and knowledge that will help them become culturally competent, thus, enabling them to serve increasingly diverse communities, which Vanderbroeck and Wasserfallen (2017) describe as being critical to cultural diversity. What is important to note is that implementing the diversity training program online will afford the organization an excellent opportunity to save on the cost of implementation while augmenting learning by enabling the employees to learn from almost anywhere. The appropriateness of an online diversity training program is also attributed to how Kaiser Permanente’s employees are scattered in different geographical locations across the United States, and the training can also be carried out concurrently. E-learning is also described by Ahmad and Thressiakutty (2018) as being highly adaptable, and thus, it is suitable when it comes to enabling learners to study and learn at their own pace, which improves the adoption of the material being learned.
The adaptability of e-learning also allows employees with different learning styles in an organization to establish and maintain a steady pace of learning. However, before the implementation of a full-scale program, it is recommended that a pilot program be rolled out to a multidisciplinary sample of 100 employees at the organization. This will make a lot easier to determine the program’s feasibility, as noted by Jacobs et al. (2017), and thus, be able to establish a more effective way to deliver diversity training to Kaiser Permanente’s geographically diverse employees. Generally speaking, successful implementation of the online diversity training will help augment the organization’s existing diversity and inclusion programs since research by Ahmad and Thressiakutty (2018) assert that new strategies are cost-effective and seamless to implement if they align with the current initiatives. Some of the critical aspects of the program include:
· Exposure to diverse facets of the modern-day health care.
· Development of key skills and knowledge like cross-cultural communication deemed critical to culturally competent care.
· Lectures, demonstration, and professional development.
· Leadership training achieved through teamwork as well as collaborative projects.
· Coaching and continuous assistance led by distinguished professionals or subject matter experts.
· Simulation labs to foster creativity and innovation when it comes to addressing diversity-related problems that would impact the delivery of high-quality and culturally competent care.
· Possible opportunities to conduct research on a wide range of topics, such as cultural awareness and health disparities.
· Mock interviews and exam reviews for physicians, nurses, and pharmacists.
Essentially, the implementation will be made seamless by the fact that the value drives the current programs that the organization places on the rich diversity of its workforce. Kaiser Permanente encourages an open, inclusive work environment that supports as well as empowers employees. Online diversity training implemented quarterly for both new and existing employees will be made possible by the organization’s longstanding commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion designed to guarantee culturally competent care to its over 12 million members. The firm’s continued use of industry-leading expertise and advanced technology will also improve the effectiveness of the implementation process (Kaiser Family Foundation, n.d.).
A multidisciplinary team should be constituted to help with the creation and implementation of a diversity training program. For instance, the team should comprise of experts from different fields, such as subject matter experts on online training and diversity management, physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals. Importantly, the diversity of ideas will increase the chances that diversity training as a business opportunity is implemented seamlessly and innovatively. Murphy, Curtis, McCloughen (2016) recommend this as an approach to ensuring that all learning needs are identified and addressed more effectively.
Ethical Considerations
According to Ahmad and Thressiakutty (2018), ethics play a significant role in healthcare, and it is for this reason that healthcare organizations must ensure that they adhere to established ethical principles. Ethical values are indispensable for any healthcare provider (Haddad & Geiger, 2019). For instance, adherence to principles designed to ensure beneficial patient-physician relationships (beneficence and nonmaleficence) cannot be underestimated (Ahmad & Thressiakutty, 2018). Some of the ethical considerations applicable to Kaiser Permanente include respect for individuals and valuing privacy and confidentiality.
Respect for Individuals
The delivery of care should be with compassion and respect for the inherent dignity, worth, as well as unique attributes of all persons (Haddad & Geiger, 2019). Respect for individuals is an indispensable ethical consideration at Kaiser Permanente, especially when it comes to the delivery of care and implementation of initiatives to improve employee performance. Recognizing the highly diverse nature of the current workforce, employee development programs should reflect respect for the enrolled individuals. It will be an excellent way to foster self-determination and foster continuous learning.
Privacy & Confidentiality
Healthcare organizations like Kaiser Permanente are expected to promote, advocates for, and protects the rights, health, as well as safety of the patient, as noted by Haddad and Geiger (2019). Therefore, it is important to consider ensuring that private and confidential information are protected from unauthorized access. Private and confidential information should only be shared when deemed necessary, such as for the training, as suggested by Cohen (2018). The protection of private and confidential data ought to be a priority to confidence in the organization’s healthcare delivery system and employee training or learning system. More specifically, as a healthcare organization the obligation to safeguard patient information is solely relied upon their ability to follow policies, procedures and protocol. Professionals then have an obligation to hold that information in confidence.
Other ethical considerations include accountability and responsibility for practice, decision-making, and taking action in keeping with the obligation to provide high-quality patient care. It is also vital to consider roles and settings that help advance the profession, besides protecting human rights, promoting health diplomacy, as well as reduce health disparities, as suggested by Haddad and Geiger (2019) and Cohen (2018).
Leadership and Collaboration Aspects
Key leadership and collaboration aspects include problem-solving, the ability to build relationships, and ability to think creatively and strategically. It is reasoned that the proposed solution, diversity training, will augment the organization’s efforts to foster creativity and innovation, and the ability to think creatively and strategically will be an indispensable strength in the realization of this benefit.
Problem-Solving
Problem-solving is an important aspect of nearly every leadership style, such as transformational leadership. The identified opportunity is meant to empower leaders to develop solutions to problems like conflicts within their workplaces (Taylor-Ford & Abell, 2015).
Build Relationships
Good relationships are critical to improved collaboration, and diversity training provides an excellent opportunity for leaders to eliminate barriers to effective collaboration. Improved conflict management and resolution critical to leadership efforts to foster collaboration (Taylor-Ford & Abell, 2015).
