For Katetutor only please

Part 1 Project

Investigating the Veterans Affairs Medical Appointment System and Waiting Times

Richard Hairston

Kaplan University

GM505 Action Research and Consulting Skills

Dr. Heidi Gregory-Mina

8/1/2017

Nature of Customer Service at VA Medical Center

This action research project entails the scope and the purpose of the study, how data will be collected and analyzed, the stakeholders involved and their varying interests, and how the background of the study will be laid. The research project will be done to establish why it takes so long to get an appointment within the primary care clinics at Veterans Affairs (VA) medical treatment facility in Helena Montana. This topic was chosen because for a long time, the veterans of this country have really suffered from problems originating from the department of veterans of affairs (Miller, 2012). There are seven major stakeholders involved in this action research project as indicated in the Critical Mass Grid (Appendix) done earlier. These include: government, customer service representatives, nurses, doctors, veterans, healthcare billing offices, local clinics, and hospitals.

This research project will take approximately two weeks to accomplish. This is because the research project has to collect data, analyze the data and see the correlation that exists between various variables. The stakeholders involved in this research project will have to use the results of this study depending on their varying needs and the interests.

Scope and Purpose

The research project will be done to establish why it takes so long to get an appointment within the primary care clinics at Veterans Affairs (VA) medical treatment facility in Helena Montana. For a long time, the veterans of this country have really suffered from problems originating from the department of veterans of affairs (Miller, 2012). The study will access unlimited sources in order investigate this problem thoroughly. The medical support assistants will be my inquiry team since they deal with the patients appointments. The study will facilitate the interaction with the veterans, to the doctors, to upper management. In order to establish why it takes so long to get an appointment within the primary care clinics at Veterans Affairs (VA) medical treatment facility in Helena Montana, this study will examine the varying needs of the stakeholders and how they can be addressed.

This research project will take approximately two weeks to accomplish. This is because the research project has to collect data, analyze the data and see the correlation that exists between various variables. The stakeholders involved in this research project will have to use the results of this study depending on their varying needs and the interests.

Stakeholders

There are seven major stakeholders involved in this action research project as indicated in the Critical Mass Grid (Appendix) done earlier. The main stakeholder in the affairs of the veterans is not just the government, but it’s the Veteran seeking treatment. The Veteran is suffering from not being able to seek medical treatment in a timely manner, and its limited to healthcare opinions due expensive insurance plans (Miller, 2012). The government in this case has various expectations. The government wants to see that the patients are given proper care, law is respected, and that the cost of offering services is affordable to the patients.

On the other hand, the expectations of veterans want to get quality medical services. They also want to get affordable medical services which are reliable. The customers are looking for the business organization that will listen to their needs and wants or complaints and handle them with a human heart. Many organizations out there have even contracted consultants that will help them address their relationships with the customers. This is very important to ensure that the organization is able to maintain a long term relationship with its customers. A long term relationship means that the parties involved in the relationship treat each other with utmost good faith and that they are willing to undergo an extra mile in order to meet the needs and aspirations of one another. This is to say in case of customer satisfaction, the organization should even be willing to undergo some loss to meet emergence needs of s long term customers. In other words, the organizations should not look at how it is benefiting in short run but should instead look at the customers in a long term dimension and strategize on how win that customers. As such, there is need to ensure that the organizations come up with ways of meeting the customer needs and wants.

The second stakeholder and inquiry team members is the patient representative/ customer service rep personnel who are always in direct contact with the veterans on a delay basis. The customer service professionals to win more customers through treating them well. They also want to attract new customers. They want the working environment to be improved in order to offer quality services. They need to be paid well.

Medical Support Assistants, Nurses, doctors and community care coordinators will take a major in this action research to collaborate on the question at hand, and also find answers. Their desired role as I see with this research project is where I can accomplish most of my research with the inquiry team that is placed within each perspective group. The medical support assistants, nurses, and doctors expect to be empowered in order to deliver quality services. Empowering these employees can be through training and development. The skills and the competences of the nurses can be improved through training and development. This means that the employees will have the skills necessary to perform their duties with diligence and utmost care handling the veterans or patients. This means that the patients will receive high quality healthcare services. This will improve the patient satisfaction. For this reason, the healthcare organizations should invest more in training of their work force especially on the customer service element.

Further, employee empowerment to the nurses will improve the patient outcomes when treating asthma. Employee empowerment is the strategies applied in an organization to ensure the non-managerial staff members are able to take control and make decision of their operation without consulting their managerial staff or their bosses (Menon, 2001). The decision to be made by these employees might be large or small depending on degree of power in which an organization may decide to invest employees. Usually, the empowering of employees tends to start with training followed by conversion of whole enterprise to a model characterized by empowerment. On other hand, it may involve giving the employees the power and abilities to take control and make some critical decisions on certain situation on their own. Empowered employees are always conscientious, loyal and committed and this will improve the patient outcomes (Burston, Chaboyer, & Gillespie, 2014). They are in position to serve as steady ambassadors for their businesses since they are very eager to share knowledge and ideas.

The employees are the ones in charge of servicing the customers. As such, there is need to ensure that these employees are equipped with skills and knowledge to ensure that they serve the customers well. For this reason, the organizations should invest in training their employees to ensure that they get to appeal to the needs and wants of the customers. The interaction between the organization and customers is very important to determining the level of customer satisfaction. Normally, the customers will remember how they were served by the organization rather than the product they purchased. Most researches show that most customers tend to stick to the organization that gives them “human” service.

Last stakeholder would the external facilities and organizations, such as local treatment clinics, hospitals, and healthcare billing offices that will be affected by change of business practices. They will provide a crucial role in this research project as to become part of the inquiry team to find the best possible solution that will benefit the customers, and the organizations involved in the treatment.

Appraisal and Involvement

The topic of this project is: Establishing why it takes so long to get an appointment within the primary care clinics at Veterans Affairs (VA) medical treatment facility in Helena Montana. This topic was chosen because for a long time, the veterans of this country have really suffered from problems originating from the department of veterans of affairs (Miller, 2012). In other words, this research project will look at the issue of customer satisfaction and how the interests of various stakeholders involved in delivering the services are taken care of. The research about the customer satisfaction is very important. This is because, ordinarily, the needs and wants of the market keep on changing. That is, the tastes and preferences of the market will be influenced by many factors such as change in technology, social media influence, economic conditions, customer’s perception, entrants of many substitutes in the industry, among other factors. For this reason, there is need for an organization to have an elaborate strategy of ensuring that market research is continuously carried out so as to ensure that the needs and wants are met every day. One way of achieving this goal is to ask for customer feedback whenever the organization serves them (Morgan, 2010). As such, the customers should be given some comment cards to fill in order to give the organization insights on how to improve its services.

The organization will be able to respond to the needs and wants of the market if the market research is done accurately. Further, there is need to engage consultants to ensure that the organization is able to use the current methods of carrying the market research. This will greatly ensure that the organization has addressed the changing needs and wants of the market effectively (Schein, 2009).

Expectations

The findings of this research will help the healthcare organizations be able to understand the varying needs of various stakeholders who are involved in delivery of medical services. For this reason, the management will be able to come up with strategies that will ultimately ensure that they enhance the customer satisfaction of the veterans and hence gain what is referred to as customer loyalty. Further, the interests of working staffs such as doctors, nurses, and customer service representatives will be catered for. When the customers are well satisfied they tend to remain loyal to an organization in that they find their needs and wants are well met. The researcher will gain more knowledge in the area of customer satisfaction and will therefore be able to have a deeper understanding of various interests of different stakeholders in healthcare organizations. Further, the strategists and consultants will benefit with the findings of this research as they will be able to have more knowledge in addressing the needs and wants of the customers or veterans/patients.

The results of this research project will be available in approximately two weeks time. This is because the research project has to collect data, analyze the data and see the correlation that exists between various variables. The stakeholders involved in this research project will have to use the results of this study depending on their varying needs and the interests.

Plan to obtain data

The data will be collected by use of questionnaires, focus-group discussion, observation, and interviews from the medical staffs, customer representatives, and general staffs of the medical treatment facility in Helena Montana. Further, information about the organization will also be obtained from the case studies and website. The data will be analyzed through charts, percentages, graphs, among other tools applicable. I have acquired technical skills on how to operate various software and applications. This will help me in analyzing the data by use of the data analysis tools in the computer.

Laying the groundwork

I have prepared the questionnaires with both close-ended and open-ended questions to present to the respondents. Further, I have carried out a pilot project with another healthcare institution to ascertain the effectiveness of my questionnaires. Further, I have approached various authorities to seek permission to carry out this study. These include the University administration, the management of the organization from where I will collect the data, among other stakeholders.

Conclusion

This paper sought to investigate why it takes so long to get an appointment within the primary care clinics at Veterans Affairs (VA) medical treatment facility in Helena Montana. The stakeholders involved in this research were government, veterans, medical personnel, and external facilities and organizations, such as local treatment clinics, hospitals, and healthcare billing offices that will be affected by change of business practices.

References

Burston, S., Chaboyer, W., & Gillespie, B. (2014). Nurse‐sensitive indicators suitable to reflect nursing care quality: a review and discussion of issues. Journal of clinical nursing, 23(13-14), 1785-1795.

Menon, S. (2001). Employee empowerment: An integrative psychological approach. Applied Psychology, 50(1), 153-180.

Miller, T. W. (2012). The Praeger handbook of veterans' health: History, challenges, issues, and developments. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger.

Morgan, G. (2010). Leadership: The Management of Meaning. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 18 (3), pp. 257-273.

Schein, H. (2009).Organizational Culture and Leadership. (3rd Ed,). San Francisco, Jossey-Bass: Wiley.

Stringer, E.T. (2014).Action research (4thed.).Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.

tions, 1, 2/3, 147–66.

Appendix

Critical Mass Grid

Action Research Project: Why does it take so long to get an appointment within the primary care clinics at Veterans Affairs (VA) medical treatment facility in Helena Montana?

Critical Mass Grid

Preparing to Negotiate: Key Ideas and Notes

Preparing to Negotiate: Key Ideas and Notes