An organizational structure entails a framework that defines the hierarchy of staffs, duties, and their workflow. Barnes-Jewish Hospital, arguably one of the biggest hospitals in the US has adopted a functional form of organizational structure. It has more than 1,800 medical staffs that include nurses, physicians, technicians, and interns. With a functional organization, employees are grouped based on specialized functional areas (Swayne, Duncan & Ginter, 2013). For instance, at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, the functional areas include IT, support services, patient care, finance or marketing, and human resource.

Regarding advantages, this organizational structure offers specific divisions of labor (Swayne, Duncan & Ginter, 2013). Precisely, individuals with similar knowledge and skills work together thus becoming specialists in their fields. Second, a functional organizational structure enhances operational efficiency and productivity level of the hospital. Since employees have specialized skills, they can perform tasks with confidence and efficiently; hence, reducing incidences of errors. The disadvantage of a functional organizational structure concerns the management issues (Australia & Gido, 2014). The different functional areas may find it hard to communicate with one another due to a high degree of formalization required. This would decrease flexibility and innovation in a hospital setting.

References

Australia, C. L., & Gido, J. (2014). Information Technology Project Management. Cincinnati OH: Cengage Learning US.

Swayne, L. E., Duncan, W. J., & Ginter, P. M. (2013). Strategic management of health care organizations (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley

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