HM01E344 Unit 1 Learning Activity 1: Assignment 1

Maintaining Clinical Knowledge within

the Workplace.

As the manager of the billing department at Sacred Heart Hospital, it is my job to ensure

that the employees under my command are fully qualified to perform the duties required of

them. It would be unreasonable to demand a level of work from my employees if I have not

provided an avenue for them to succeed. With medicine being a fast-paced and ever changing

enterprise, the knowledge and skill sets that medical workers need to have would also be

constantly changing. If I denied or failed to provide my employees access to this much needed

and updated information, then I would be robbing them of the ability to complete their duties

within Sacred Heart Hospital. So as the manager, it is essential that I ensure that my employees

stay current with their clinical knowledge and skills.

Like snowflakes, no two people are the same; so it is safe to assume that no two people

will operate as a manager in exactly the same way. There are a number of specific qualities

that could aid or hinder a manager’s ability to effectively complete their duties. There are

certain traits and characteristics that great and effective managers possess, but more important

than that is what managers actually do. According to (Katz, 1974) there are three fundamental

skills required of a manager. These would be Technical skills, human skills, and conceptual

skills. These skills sets encompass what managers do; it is proposed that the appropriate use of

these skill sets is more important than the individual traits or qualities that managers possess.
 In order for me to be an effective manager of the billing department, I will have to utilize

all three of these skill sets to ensure that my employees stay current with their clinical

knowledge and skills. The first skill set mentioned, technical skill, is essentially an

understanding of and proficiency in a specific kind of activity. Particularly, that activity would

involve methods, processes, procedures or techniques. It has been found that this skill is more

essential to lower level management positions. While it is useful in every aspect of

management especially technical specialized areas, it seems to have more importance for lower

management levels. As the manager of the billing department, my technical skills would be

centered on the billing process. I would be well versed in the process and the variations of it

for the different insurance companies. I would also be well versed in the coding procedure, and

would stay up to date with changes to the CPT and ICD-9 codes. This skill would be essential to

providing my employees with the knowledge that they need to stay current and preform

efficiently. If there were changes to the billing procedure for patients covered under the

Medicaid program, I would have to ensure that my employees were trained for that transition.

This could not take place if I did not have the technical understanding of the process.

That particular training may not be efficiently conducted without human skill. The

second skill set, human skill, is all about being an effective group member. The key to this skill is

the ability to build cooperative effort within a team as the leader or while managing intergroup

relationships. This skill set is equally important across the entire spectrum of management.

From lower level managers to CEO’s of multi-million dollar companies, human skill is essential.

While trying to impart my technical knowledge of the change to the billing procedure, I must be

utilizing my human skill to become an effective group leader. Personally I would send an e-mail
to all of my employees notifying them of the pertinent information about the change, like when

it would take place and why it is being implemented. The e-mail would also contain

information about a department meeting that will be held to go over the change in more detail.

The e-mail would allow all of my employees to show up to the department meeting prepared

for what is to come. Without it, the employees could have begun speculating about the nature

of the department meeting leading to false and malicious rumors going through the grapevine

which have the potential to disrupt productivity. Without the e-mail, employees could also

have arrived at the meeting with preconceived notions that would have acted as a barrier to

the absorption of the information I would be providing to the staff.

The third skill set, conceptual skill, focuses around the ability to look at the hospital as a

whole and understand how the different parts function in conjunction with others, and how

changes to one area may affect others. Conceptual skill becomes more and more important the

farther up the managerial latter you go. While this skill is always important, it becomes critical

at the senior executive leadership level. This skill is all about recognizing relationships between

departments and being able to think about potential problems that could arise among

conflicting objectives. I would have to utilize this skill and think about every department that

could also be effected by this change in the billing procedure. It may be that other departments

need to be notified as well about the change. It could be that the nurses need to start providing

more detailed information about specific procedures for them to be billed for correctly under

the new guidelines. Without the conceptual skill to see this problem in advance, my

department would have to be set back by the lack of information provided by the nursing staff

before I could begin to develop a solution. With the use of conceptual skill, I would be able to
see this problem before it arises, and therefore work to correct it without any substantial upset

to the flow of work within either department.

In this scenario it is clear how all three skills are not only useful but truly essential for an

effective manager to have. It is my opinion that out of the three skills the technical skill is the

most important in this particular example. While still being destructive in their own right, the

issues that could arise because of a lack of human skill or a lack of conceptual skill could easily

be fixed. However, the lack of technical skill in this situation would cause issues to arise that

would not have such a clear solution. If I did not understand the process of billing for Medicaid,

I would therefore have a great deal of trouble explaining and education the entire staff on the

changes that would be made to that procedure. It would be devastating to the staff’s

productivity and the most effective solution may be to just provide them with a more qualified

manager. The lack of human or conceptual skills would have created a type of learning

experience where those skills would begin to develop for the manager, but a lack of technical

ability would be too much to overcome while on the job. This is why I feel that at least in this

specific scenario the technical skill was the most important.

Works Cited: Health Care Management 5th ed.: Stephen M. Shortell; Arnold D. Kaluzny