The Construction of a Professionalized Healthcare System

During the primitive times of human history, professions did not exist whatsoever, and people did their individual chores within a closed community. However, men and women still fulfilled different functions – men haunted animals, constructed shelters, and made various tools, weapons, and vessels. Women were responsible for raising children, preparing food, making clothing and footwear items, and collecting plants. Then, as society developed, the fundamental labor context changed significantly. This paper aims to critically discuss the emergence of the professional, the construction of a personalized healthcare system, as well as how it is shaped through the frame of power, influence, and control. Moreover, the present paper analyzed organizational learning in Siemens Company and discusses how the current strategy takes into account such a concept.

In medieval society, the European university emerged to meet the high demand for skilled professionals in different areas of life. The universities trained students in only three primary professions of clergy, law, and medicine. Then, as stated above, with social structure advancement, market relations between people began to arise, and they started to specialize in different types of work. It happened due to a number of factors, including the increase in total production output and trading, the rise of capitalism and industrialization. As a result, people began to exchange with each other the products of their labor. The knowledge and skills accumulated in each group of people were passed down from generation to generation. Thus, came the division of labor; occupational and knowledge differentiation influenced the emergence of various professions in medicine, architecture, education, accounting, and other areas of social structure.

As a professionalized occupational sphere, the healthcare system is manifested through the frame of power, influence, and control, just like any other system in the capitalistic framework. The healthcare system establishes the medical profession as an expert occupation separate from other professions, which also maintains the labor market monopoly in the services of public interest. The profession dissociates from the middle-class occupations in a way it establishes the recognized jurisdictional boundaries, inter-occupational competition, professional lobbying, licensing, and occupational closure. In this sense, a profession is an institution that controls the existing occupations, the relations between the entrants, and seeks to enhance the working conditions within the profession. This also adds to the formation of group identity and solidarity, as well as the self-regulation of the healthcare practitioners in the healthcare settings.

At least a few decades ago, in English-speaking healthcare practice, medicine held power over other health occupations while being relatively autonomous as a labor division. Collaboration between independent clinicians was occasional rather than inclusive, and such a tendency may be formulated as medical dominance (Nugus et al., 2010). However, today, both competitive power and collaborative power are observed to be exercised within the healthcare teams – it follows from the fundamental need to improve patient outcomes. This has been implemented by healthcare systems of the United Kingdom and a number of other countries by establishing teams sharing roles and responsibilities, as well as power within the healthcare setting. The implementation of such systems is known as interprofessional learning and interprofessional practice, which form collaborative power within the profession. It involves the joint participation of healthcare practitioners in decision-making and role distribution for the best patient outcomes.

However, while teamwork and mutual partnerships are actively exercised in today’s healthcare system, competitive power still co-exists in line with collaborative power. It manifests itself in the form of doctors’ influence and control over other clinicians in some way or another in different healthcare settings (Nugus et al., 2010). Such dominance of doctors over clinicians may be explained by their degree of higher education and their significant working and social status that requires significant decision-making in the field of patient pathways. Although, doctors do encourage conferences and collaborative meetings on particular patient cases for interprofessional sharing of opinions and teamwork for better patient outcomes. Thus, patient management combines both collaborative power in the form of professional cooperation, and competitive power practiced through the doctors’ dominance and influence within the healthcare setting. The two co-exist in the medical environment, complementing each other to meet the needs and demands of each particular patient.

Critical Discussion of the Organisational Learning in Siemens Company and How the Current Strategy of Disaster Management Takes into Account This Concept

Taking into account the goals to provide the best patient output and create effective strategies for disaster and pressure management, it is crucial to partner with a supply organization with outstanding learning and transformation capacities. Thus, the partnership must be established with a company that implies organizational learning as a part of the overall development on the market and ensuring the best employee satisfaction and growth. Organizational learning is a crucial part of the company’s workforce training and certification, and it is based on the concept of dynamic change, flexibility, adaptation, and meeting the current demand of the market environment (Saadat, V. and Saadat, Z., 2016). Therefore, this process requires an open-minded approach from the management teams and the desire to take major actions and responsibility for the company’s parts to work effectively as a whole.

Indeed, a learning organization creates an open learning culture, where employees are free to share feedback and constructive criticism on any aspect of the company’s activity, thus making room for new ideas and solutions for the detected issues (Saadat, V. and Saadat, Z., 2016). A learning organization supports its employees to achieve mastery in their field by providing study courses and individual trainings. Moreover, such an organization learns from the mistakes and weaknesses of other companies, borrowing their best practices, and implementing the working techniques. Organizational learning also implies the mindset of the life-long education that ensures constant maintenance and upgrading of knowledge throughout the career path, as well as leaving room for innovation and generating new ideas for the organization’s benefit. Finally, each member of a learning organization shares a common vision of the direction the company is aimed at. The employees have a shared goal and work as a team to achieve it in the long run.

As a remarkable international technology conglomerate, the Siemens Company was chosen as a medical equipment supplier due to its indispensable policy of organizational learning. Siemens Power Academy is a product-related training that unifies a number of programs aiming at providing their employees with the best knowledge of the company operation on different levels (Siemens Power Academy, 2020). The company’s workforce is trained in-depth skills of leadership and decision-making, as well as practical problem-solving capabilities and group management abilities. Siemens Power Academy ensures the long-term training and certification programs for engineers meet the possible challenges of the grid. These programs aim at delivering top technical knowledge and practical skills to the students. They learn the electrical engineering theory, system reliability considerations, and equipment applications, as well as design and transmission courses necessary for the successful operation of the electrical grid.

In perspective, such learning possibilities not only allow the employees to broaden their knowledge and develop practical skills but also ensure employee engagement and satisfaction, as well as their commitment to the company and its development over the longer term. This positively influences the overall recruitment, engagement, and retention of the workers, as they have a clear perspective of career development and individual growth. The employees feel valued by the company that invests in their professional advancement and is concerned about their safety and comfortable working environment. This directly affects the satisfaction of clients working with Siemens Inc. The company owns Siemens Healthcare, specializing in medical and diagnostic equipment production. Partnering with such a company that is concerned about constant development and personnel training is the best decision when aiming at effective healthcare management goals and prevention of disaster and natural hazards consequences, including the latest COVID-19 pandemic.

To conclude, the healthcare system exercises power through the combination of competition and collaboration, based on the professional influence of doctors over other clinicians in different patient cases and their control over the medical services. After all, patient management is the key goal of any healthcare practitioner that must be negotiated based on the patient’s individual needs and demands. Moreover, the success of medical services providers depends on the stable, thought-through partnerships with other organizations. In this case, the medical supply company under investigation is Siemens and its organizational learning practices. The company’s Power Academy deals with the implementation of such practices for employee growth and professional development. The high-standard qualification of the company’s workforce guarantees client satisfaction and trust in the company’s products and services.

Reference List

Nugus P. et al. (2010) ‘How and where clinicians exercise power: Interprofessional relations in health care’, Social Science & Medicine 71(5), pp. 898-909.

Saadat, V. and Saadat, Z. (2016) ‘Organizational learning as a key role of organizational success’, Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 230, pp. 219-225.

Siemens Power Academy (2020) Course Catalogue. [Online].