Baltimore County Department of Health and Human Services

Interview of the Administrator
Name:
Institution:
Introduction
The Baltimore County Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the county’s state's health care and human services provider. The department promotes well-being among individuals, families and the community as a whole by providing quality health, housing and social services. HHS is comprised of an administrative unit of the Health and Social Services Department. The figure below represents the organizational structure of HHS.
The figure below is the map to HHS;
Interviewing a Patient Administrator
I was able to secure an interview with a RN who is the Deputy Health Officer at HHS. Her name is Della Leister who answered me all the questions I asked her. According to Della, the role of a patient administrator is supervising medical care, implementing procedures and overseeing personnel. They are also responsible for promoting and supporting the effective use of knowledge, information and technology within their organization. These are the questions I asked Della;
1 Number of people supervised, and level of job satisfaction.
Della Leister’s unit has 5 bureaus under her namely: Prevention, Promotion and Preparedness; Behavioral Health; Community Health Services; Clinical Services; Health Care Access. These are funded through federal, state, and county monies that include core funding and grants. There are approximately 800 employees. The satellite centers are based in the community and various other sites. The administrator told me that he guides employees under her by being a positive role model for the company. She is responsible for communicating, reinforcing and monitoring that the vision and values of the organization are upheld by the junior staff under her. Motivation and empowerment are vital components that has raised the level of job satisfaction. Rewards and benefits to staff for job well are some of the methods used by my interviewee to attain high level of job satisfaction.
2 How do you ensure your organization delivers the best care, for every patient, every time?
Ensuring that the organization delivered the best care, for every patient, every time was achieved by implementing a quality improvement plan that includes performance measures for each program in the Department of Health. This strategy allows the organization to work in a way that is best for patients. Staffs who work at HHS have been asked to come up with ideas to improve the quality of services. Performance measures and appraisals are used to gauge how we are faring in terms of delivering the best care. The performance measures are based on 3 questions: What are we doing, how well are we doing it, and is anyone better off. This is Results Based Accountability (Friedman). An example of this would be satisfaction surveys and reports. .
3 How would you define a successful administrator?
A successful administrator is the one who is one who understand his fundamental roles as a leader and set a good example in terms of ethical behaviour to his/her colleagues and the company’s junior staff. Quality and Integrity are core commitment areas of a successful administrator when carrying their operations. They are also visionary and ...