Case Analysis
Part 1 – Definition of the situation
Mountain States Healthcare (MSH) is a regional system of hospitals that
handle each facility as an individual branch. A single facility was started as
Salt Lake Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah and due to the organizational
success they expanded by buying other hospitals within the state. It created
“Utah Health Group,” that, with the same successful management style,
made those hospitals profitable and they started expanded again into
neighboring states. It purchases facilities within Colorado, Idaho, Utah, and
Wyoming which led to the creation of MSH; a medical facility holding
company in Salt Lake City.
While the organization continued to expand it realized that their overall
administrative costs were much higher than competing companies. A
consulting firm identified areas that could be consolidated to reduce the
administrative costs by using the latest technology; in turn bene)ting the
shareholders. One area that was identified and made first priority was the
Medical Billing department that would be consolidated from the four state’s
operations into one. The state’s director from Utah, Kyle Christiansen, and
Colorado, Colleen Kennedy, were being considered for the position. The
selection committee appeared to be favoring Colleen as the more superior
candidate to become the new director. The committee included Kyle’s old
boss who was biased by suggesting that Colleen would be an inadequate
director amongst a predominant male department; Utah was a conservative
state. So that led to the committee selecting Kyle as the new director of
Medical Billing even though he lacked the experience and knowledge.
MSH is facing a major problem of retaining their work force. In the recent
times, a large amount of the competent and qualified employees has
resigned and moved on to other companies. As a result of the change in the
leadership and the associated steps taken by Kyle, the morale of the
employees is at an all-time low and they don’t trust the leadership of the
)rm. The )rm is now without a working billing software and the new software
has been pushed back due to the lack of employees needed to implement it.
This has put a stop from billings going out and the amount of available cash
funds is in danger of depletion. The risk of losing internal customers is rising
because of their needs not being met and the situation has been noticed by
upper management.
Kyle truly believed that he had the experience and knowledge to ensure the
consolidation would be a success. He isn’t aware that his promotion was
given to him instead of earned. Throughout the events leading up to Colleen
giving her notice, Kyle thought that his plan was fail-proof and was
unreceptive to a different approach. He felt that the reason why the strategy
he implemented wasn’t working was because his new employees were
challenging him instead of executing their objectives.
The employees felt that Kyle’s changes of operations and increase in
supervision were due to lack of trust in them and incompetency on their part.
It affected their work environment, as well as their personal lives. Kyle’s lack
of communication and unwillingness to listen made them feel as if their
issues and concerns were irrelevant. As days went on so did their faith in the
company which led many to leave.
Colleen has attempted to address the endless amount of issues continuously.
Being promised that minimal changes would be made to her management
operations she put some initial trust into him by relocating. Kyle is
unresponsive and lacks the experience and leadership skills that is required
to be successful in this process. She knew it was a mistake to relocate her
