Organizations often recognize the importance of defining their mission and the role that they expect staff members to play in that mission. Typically, this is expressed as a mission statement that is distributed·often with great fanfare·to the employees. Such mission statements are often overarching principles that do not offer much guidance in terms of day-to-day activities. This is the situation at Faith Community Hospital. The hospital has distributed its mission statements to its employees on the reverse sides of their business cards, but no additional training has taken place to assist the employees with how they are to implement the mission statement as they perform their duties, or how they are to resolve conflicts that might arise between the mission of the hospital and their personal ethics. This research considers the situation in which the hospital currently finds itself, considers options for remedying the situation, and makes recommendations regarding the best course of action for resolving the issues.
Faith Community Hospital is a nonprofit organization that serves the healthcare needs of the community with high-technology equipment and staff members. The hospital has a neonatal unit that has been the focus of some legal questions as a family whose child was treated there came into conflict with the ethics of others associated with the institution. The hospital has a mission statement that is printed on the back of its business cards, and that emphasizes the hospital's commitment to providing care through a broad range of services that are in concert with the hospital's vision and values. Specifically, the mission statement says,
With the foundation and commitment of our spiritual heritage and values, our mission is to promote the health and well-being of the people in the communities we serve through a comprehensive continuum of services provided in collaboration with the partners who share the same visi...