Abstract
The project “Management Experiences of the Provincial Public Health Offices” has four main objectives: 1) to enhance the understanding related to the Public Sector Management Quality Award (PMQA); 2) to increase the opportunity to exchange knowledge and experiences among the Provincial Public Health Offices (PHOs); 3) to obtain lessons learned from the PHOs relevant to the PMQA; 4) to publicize PMQA knowledge and experiences learned from the Provincial Public Health Offices.
The methodology used in this project consists of qualitative methods using focus groups, seminar meeting, document reviews, work-visits, and in-depth interviews. Content analysis is used for analyzing the data. There are seven PHOs participating in this project, namely Nakhon Ratchasima, Lop Buri, Ang Thong, Sukhothai, Nakhon Pathom, Ubon Ratchathani, and Krabi.
The results of the study found that the participants from the PHOs are very enthusiastic in joining this project. Most of them have good attitude towards PMQA in terms of helping them to do more systematic works and to develop the potential of their staffs and organizations. However, they also think that PMQA is a new management tool which is quite complicated and difficult to implement in some areas. Below are the results of the experiences learned from the PHO regarding the seven categories of PMQA implementation.
The first category is related to organizational leadership and social responsibility. It is found that many PHOs have systematic planning, communication, implementation, and review processes. However, the problematic issues include the translation of value to the policy implementation, inefficient linkage between decentralization and innovation caused by unclear guidelines, inadequate feedback process, and unclear prioritization criteria. The flowchart of this category is suggested to link all steps for the convenience of practice. The key success factors include top management support, understanding of staff, commitment with the shared values, good attitude of top management and staff toward PMQA, and PMQA evaluation.
The result of the second category is related with strategic planning. It is found that the problems of this category are limited understanding of the concept and the criteria of this category, inadequate involvement of participants, and inefficient deployment process. The process for this category is also suggested. The key success factors of this category are the alignment among factors in the planning process, the knowledge and understanding of personnel, the learning mechanisms, information technology in supporting the planning process, and top management support.
The third category is related to the stakeholders of the PHOs. The problems are related to the techniques to classify the stakeholders, and the unclear definition of customer and stakeholder. The key success factors are the concept and techniques to classify the stakeholders, satisfaction and dissatisfaction measurement, and the readiness of databases.
The fourth category is relevant with the measurement, information systems, and knowledge management. From this study, it is found that the PHOs have systematic processes in selecting, collecting, and improving data. They can communicate these data through different channels. Lessons learned from this category include knowledge selection to manage first, the criteria for checking knowledge validity, and knowledge management evaluation. The key success factors are top management support, supporting culture, the knowledge and understanding of staff, supporting infrastructure, and continuous evaluation.
The fifth category focuses on human resource systems, learning and motivation, and personnel happiness and satisfaction. Many PHOs have both formal and informal systems for human resource planning. However, how to bring culture and the thoughts of personnel and community into the systems is still problematic for most PHOs. The communication systems in PHOs are very well established by using both formal and informal channels. The personnel evaluation systems followed the government regulations. The reward and motivation systems are for creating the awareness among people. Key success factors include top-management commitment, personnel participation, experience exchange, continuous improvement, and the fairness treatments for both at organization and personnel levels.
The sixth category emphasizes on process management, including value processes (most important processes relating to agency mission or creating values or benefits to stakeholders) and supporting processes. Lessons learned from this category are the differences in interpreting the roles and functions of PHOs, unclear criteria to define the important processes, no standards for selecting value processes, and ambiguous definition of customers and stakeholders. The suggestions are that the organizations should simultaneously implement this category in conjunction with other categories, i.e. organization profile, the second category (strategic planning) and the third category (customers and stakeholders). Guidelines for process management include 4 stages, i.e. process planning, designing, controlling, and improvement. Key success factors are management commitment, experience sharing, stakeholder participation, process standardization, good evaluation, and other category integration.
The seventh category is relevant with the results of performance by using four dimensions: effectiveness, service quality, efficiency, and organization development. Since there are much data involved with this category, PHOs need a good computer program to deal with these data. In addition, to reduce the workload in data collection, the common data sets used by many sources should be organized. Key success factors include indentifying the clear indicators, accessible data base, simultaneously implementation with other categories. Finally, policy and practical recommendations are provided, together with the future research suggestions.
