Leaderships Challenges for Mobile Mammography Project

Introduction

The mobile mammography community is likely to face various leadership challenges because the CEO has limited knowledge of its operations and the geography of the rural communities in Arizona and southern New Mexico. The Chief Executive Officer is a critical player in the healthcare institution’s decision-making hierarchy, indicating that he will be directly involved in the implementation of the project. Some aspects that the CEO is more likely to be involved in include allocating funds for various program operations, deciding the appropriate communication techniques when reaching out to the patients, and the routes each mobile mammography unit will follow. The report has identified some of the challenges the community outreach project is more likely to encounter, the proposed solutions, and the viable course of action to handle the leadership challenges.

Leadership Challenges

The main problem that the program faces is that the Chief Executive Officer lacks adequate understanding about the project’s basic concepts, which may jeopardize the quality of decisions made. According to Kouzes & Posner, (2017), the top leadership of any organization needs to have a better understanding of its operations which will ensure that they make the appropriate decision and enact relevant policies (Kouzes & Posner, 2017). There are various problems that the project will more likely encounter since the project entails the introduction of new operations and the limited knowledge by the CEO, which includes;

1. Financial and Budget Allocation Challenges– Operating mobile mammography units are usually associated with relatively high costs, including acquiring and maintaining radiologic equipment (Trivedi et al., 2022). Other costs include the operating experiences and the tracking of patients’ results. Lack of adequate knowledge of the concept of mobile mammography by the top leadership can limit the budget allocation process, which may jeopardize the entire project.
2. Geographical Challenges- The main intention of the mobile mammography project is to ensure that the screening services are more accessible by going to convenient areas such as shopping centers, churches, other religious settings, health clinics, and health clinics (Henderson, 2022). The CEO will be involved in deciding the routes and areas in which the mobile clinics operate. However, due to his limited knowledge of the geography and way of life of the rural communities in Arizona and southern New Mexico, he is more likely to experience trouble deciding the routes and areas for operations. Other geographical issues include bad weather and a lack of enough patients, which affects the productivity of the units.
3. Communication Challenges- Communicating results to the patients and offering follow-up recommendations is one issue affecting the effective operations of mobile mammography units. The units are usually mobile, making accessibility to the patients for the results and follow-ups challenging (Trivedi, et al., 2022). The fact that the Organization did not provide the services initially makes it hard to decide the effective communication strategies to keep in touch with the patients. The CEO also lacks the relevant understanding to decide on appropriate communication channels.

Recommendations

After considering the challenges that the project is more likely to encounter due to the knowledge gap on the concepts of mobile mammography units and the geographical areas, various recommendations were formulated. They include;

1. Hiring people with adequate knowledge of the project and the geography issues of rural Arizona and southern New Mexico
2. Enrolling the CEO and other Organizational members in training programs that focus on the basic operations of mobile mammography units
3. Retaining some of the employees working in the top leadership in the mobile mammography company being acquired

The Initial two recommendations were ruled out due to the following reasons

• Hiring other employees who know the project is relatively expensive and follows a complicated process. The new employees will also likely lack relevant experience in operating mobile mammography units in rural Arizona and southern New Mexico.
• Enrolling the CEO and other leadership officials in a training program is also likely to be expensive and consume a relatively long period. The training program may also fail to help the CEO and other leaders deal with the project’s geographical issues.

Retaining some of the employees working in leadership positions in the Company being acquired is cost-effective and is likely to add the relevant knowledge and experience into the decision-making process for the following reasons;

1. The employees will have adequate knowledge of the basic operations of the mobile hence helping address issues such as budgeting
2. They also understand the geographical area well, which is essential when deciding the routes to follow and the areas to set the mobile units to reach the maximum number of people
3. The employees understand the weather conditions clearly
4. They also have experience dealing with the patients in the area and hence know the suitable communication channels to use when reaching out the people for results and follow-ups
5. The leaders also understand the challenges the mobile mammography units are likely to experience and thus can provide viable insights on how to deal with them

Conclusion

Therefore, the limited knowledge by the CEO and other leaders in the Organization is likely to hinder the effective implementation of the mobile mammography project. Some challenges the Organization can encounter include budget allocations, choosing communication channels, and dealing with geographical challenges. Retaining some of the employees working in the top leadership positions in the Company being acquired will add relevant experience and knowledge to the decision-making process.

References

Henderson, M. (2022). Access, Cost and Awareness Among the Barriers to Screening Mammography. Retrieved from Radiological Society of North America: https://www.rsna.org/news/2022/october/Barriers-To-Screening-Mammography

Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2017). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations (6th ed.). Wiley.

Trivedi, U., Omofoye, T. S., Marquez, C., Sullivan, C. R., Benson, D. M., & Whitman, G. J. (2022). Mobile Mammography Services and Underserved Women. Diagnostics, 12(4),, 902.