The Interview with Phyllis Baidoo House Director at BMC

What are the healthcare leader’s day-to-day responsibilities within the organization?
The person interviewed is a house director, her name Is Phyllis Baidoo , she deals with staffing, making sure staff you have is appropriate for the unit. Also, deals with patient flow, admission into what floor based on what patient needs e.g. Tele floor, psych staff engagement, yearly evaluation, and making sure staff education is complete, payroll and timecards, and lastly, budget planning.

What education and practice experiences have prepared the leader for their current role?
The house director, Phyllis Baidoo, was an ICU nurse for 4 years. She has been a house director for 3 years. She also has a master’s degree.
What type of organizational structure is present within the organization? For example, is it a hierarchical structure or a decentralized, shared governance structure?
Hierarchal because we have Board of Trustee and it’s also a nonprofit organization. Furthermore, Berkshire Medical Center is a nonprofit organization. There is a senior leadership middle management and department of directors. Also, it’s a unionized hospital. So, Berkshire Medical Center (BMC) have to work with Massachusetts Nurse Association (MNA) nurses involved so it is like a shared governance.
What types of communication patterns or issues are present and affected by the current organizational structure?
BMC has open communication so open communication needs to be used so that people feel they can ask questions, honesty so that they can work together.
How does the leader address conflict related to divergent opinions? Discuss differences in professional background and experience, race and ethnicity, and culture.
Cultural Competent, no bias, prejudgment especially at BMC. For example, a nurse asked to go home in the middle of the night because her son is sick. So when she asked the director to go home in the night the director asked why do you have to go home and the director later found out that the nurse culture demands that the women take care of the kids and found out that she took care of the son not the husband. It is important to be nonjudgmental when dealing with all kinds of people.
What type of leadership style does the healthcare leader have, and is that style impacted by the current organizational structure and function?
The type of leadership at BMC is transformational leadership leading by example and not being a dictatorship, working together everyone is in the same boat.
Develop two additional questions related to the healthcare leader’s role and experiences within the organization. Consider question topics from the course such as improvements in the performance evaluation process, code of ethics training, implementation of shared governance, reduction of risk, development of tracer methodology, or any quality-improvement idea.