Health Care Organization As Metaphor Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Health Care Organization As Metaphor - Essay Example This metaphor of the organism can be used to understand a lot of different organizations including multinationals such as the Public Health Institute (PHI). Part I: Health Care Organization as Metaphor For the last three years, I have been working as a public health nurse with the Public Health Institute (PHI). The PHI is an internationally recognized public health organization known for its dynamic leadership in helping to improve the health of women, youths and children across the world. The main objective of the organization is to uncover health disparities existing among these identified groups, understand the causes of these disparities, and address each of them using evidence based solutions. The Public health Institute addresses various issues affecting women, children and youths and including asthma, obesity, and sexual and reproductive health on the international scene. In America the organization specifically focuses on nutrition, maternal mortality, depression and breast c ancer among women. The vision of the organization is to raise the social status of young people, girls and women by equipping them with desirable leadership skills and health education. The PHI is internationally funded by a diverse group of individuals and corporate entities to help it advance its course. My role in the organization was to focus on helping women and children under one year of age to overcome their health challenges. This involved working with women to fight breast cancer and depression, and advising them on proper nutrition to prevent them from contracting preventable diseases and helping to reduce the mortality rate. I also engaged with little children less than one year of age to help them fight asthmatic problems and other diseases prevalent among children in this age group. The PHI being an international organization, I had an opportunity to work overseas with different communities advancing the objectives of the organization. In my role as a public health nurs e with the PHI, I have gathered a lot of experience and knowledge in public health. I now understand fully how organizations in the public health sector operate, and I can relate running these organizations to various organizational theories that have been developed over time. Gareth Morgan’s theory of metaphors of organizations, for instance, can be relied upon to understand how the Public Health Institute (PHI) is structured and how it manages its affairs. My knowledge of these metaphors of organizations has greatly impacted my general understanding of public health as a nurse and as an administrator in one of the largest global public health organizations. Gareth Morgan (2006) in Images of an Organization stipulated that an organization can be best understood based on various images or metaphors that relate the organization to its environment and the need to be competitive and run into the foreseeable future. Among the images used by Gareth Morgan are machine, culture, pol itical system, organism, and the brain (Morgan, 2006). The image that can best be relied upon to understand the PHI is that of the organism. The metaphor of the organism considers all organizations to be as living organisms (Jim, 2000). Indeed, there are so many similarities between an organization and a living organism. As an organism, an organization is in a constant state of change and growth. Just as organisms, all organizations have very complex needs to thrive and survive over