Discussion: NURS 4455 Manager Controls
Discussion: NURS 4455 Manager Controls
DQ2 For Maximum Score – must respond to all 3 questions.
1. How do you define quality of care?
2. What factors can you control, as a manager, for your staff to provide high-quality care (which factors are internal and which are external)?
3. If an organization is deciding between several quality management programs which would you recommend and why?
what are the Factor Manager Controls?
After strategies are set and plans are made, management’s primary task is to take steps to ensure that these plans are carried out, or, if conditions warrant, that the plans are modified. This is the critical control function of management. And since management involves directing the activities of others, a major part of the control function is making sure other people do what should be done.
The management literature is filled with advice on how to achieve better control. This advice usually includes a description of some type of measurement and feedback process:
The basic control process, wherever it is found and whatever it is found and whatever it controls, involves three steps: (1) establishing standards. (2) measuring performance against these standards. and (3) correcting deviations from standards and plans.1
A good management control system stimulates action by spotting the significant variations from the original plan and highlighting them for the people who can set things right.2
Controls need to focus on results.3
This focus on measurement and feedback, however, can be seriously misleading. In many circumstances, a control system built around measurement and feedback is not feasible. And even when feasibility is not a limitation, use of a feedback-oriented control system is often an inferior solution. Yet, good controls can be established and maintained using other techniques.
What is needed is a broader perspective on control as a management function: this article addresses such a perspective. The first part summarizes the general control problem by discussing the underlying reasons for implementing controls and by describing what can realistically be achieved. In the second part, the various types of controls available are identified. The last part discusses why the appropriate choice of controls is and should be different in different settings.
