Healthcare is one of the leading industries all around the world and it’s growing faster year by year. Just like any other business there many factors that need to be controlled in order for the business to excel and succeed. In this research, we will be discussing healthcare operation management. This research will also discuss how hospitals and clinics regardless of size are driving the industry to be more efficient. Healthcare operation management is a very sensitive topic since it involves the health and lives of all human being around the world. Being more efficient in this case does not only mean saving money but as well as saving the lives of many around the globe. The goal of our research is to explain and elaborate on all the methods used in healthcare operation management in top healthcare institutes around the globe.
Introduction
An operation is a job or task that includes subtopics or steps. Operation management is managing any specific operation and making it better in every way possible. Operation management evolved greatly after the industrial era since projects and operations are getting bigger. While it may not be clear to everyone but it can be related to any task, even the ones as simple as moving pieces of wood from one place to another. For example how many pieces would you pick up every time you go? Should you call a friend or are you better off by yourself? When should you be taking your break? Anything that can be changed and improved would fall under operation management since you are increasing the quality or the efficiency of your final output.
Adam Smith who is well known as the father of modern economics has addressed operation management in his book “the wealth of nations” he wrote about how the division of labor could be more efficient than one person or a worker working on a product from start to finish. Which is a strategy of operation management; since it’s going to make an operation faster and more efficient. Later on this was adapted by Henry ford in his assembly line technique of mass production which found great success. It reduced the total time of building a single car from twelve hours to two and half and thirty minutes. Which revolutionized the automobile industry and inspired many other industries.
Healthcare operation management is operation management in health-related operations. We will be discussing various topics including service quality, operation strategy, information technology and finally service scheduling and performance. Each of those topics is essential for a healthcare institute to be successful and efficient. Regardless of the size of the institute, quality of the service needs to be perfect with minimal errors. Everything needs to be planned from A to Z to ensure that all patients get the best service possible.
Technology in healthcare operation management
Technology plays a big role in operating nowadays. In hospitals for instance, it can be used in many ways, it’s important in gathering data and day-to-day operations . Most common operation management technology innovations are EHR systems, patient flow softwares , and advanced data analytics.
Electronic health records or as known as ‘EHR systems’ is simply an electronic version of a patient’s medical history. EHR systems includes all of the key administrative clinical data relevant to that persons care under a particular provider, including demographics, progress notes, problems, medications, vital signs, past medical history, immunizations, laboratory data and radiology reports. The existence of this system in a hospital can improve patient care by Reducing the incidence of medical error, and improving the accuracy and clarity of medical records.
Patient flow software is a software that improves the hospital efficiency and utilization of resources, the software covers mostly every detail such as patients coming in and out. It also helps in bed management to reduce the possibility of bed shortage and long waiting hours. This software is a service sold by independent companies and then its operated by the hospital staff.
Advanced data analytics is data that management can base decisions on . This service includes all kind of data gathering such as costs , human behavior ,pharmaceutical and research and development . This collected information is accurate and ,as a result, decisions based on given data can only be beneficial for the industry.
Service performance
Service performance can be portrayed as the set of activities and programs that are carried out to achieve a sequence of targets and desires beforehand set. In other words, the performance of a healthcare device implies a strategic orientation, a precise type of corporation and a shape of the healthcare system which helps carrying out its mission to attain the desires set by means of the authorities and society as a whole. In recent years, an increasing quantity of work and interest has been dedicated to measuring performance in health structures with the closing purpose of enhancing them. The using pressure at the back of this style is rooted in the contemporary environmental characteristics of healthcare and the worries of governments and customers of services. Resource constraints and mainly expenditure, growing public expectations and worries about security, great and fairness all amplify this strain and demand for guilty fitness care systems. The goal of the overall performance evaluation is to provide suitable facts to governments and users on the health care systems. This information would be used to re – diagram these healthcare structures in the most efficient and equitable way and to satisfy all those involved in this gadget (consumers, professionals, suppliers, managers and governments).
The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has identified some of the duties of any relevant performance assessment:
· Monitoring the main determining factors of health trends.
· To have a relationship between the design and performance of a particular health system and thus provide policymakers with the tools necessary to develop a more efficient systems.
· To help identify priorities for interventions in health care and to contribute to their design, management and monitoring.
· Provide analysis and share information on different experiences to better and more efficient assessments.
· To assess progress towards key goals of the health system.
Service scheduling
Scheduling systems are used by primary and specialist care clinics to manage the access of service providers and hospitals to schedule elective surgeries. Several factors affect the quality of appointment systems, such as the variability of arrival and service time, patient and provider preferences, available information technology and planning experience for staff. Scheduling systems for appointments are at the intersection of efficiency and timely access to health services. Timely access is important to achieve good medical results. It is also important to satisfy the patient. The ability to provide enough timely access is predetermined by a number of factors, including key questions about the number and types of physical assets and equipment in which a health system should invest, how resources should be assigned to various sites, how each clinic or hospital should be filled, What rules determine which providers and patients have better access to resources and how to schedule appointments. Specialist health clinics are designed to provide mostly complex diagnostic and treatment health services. In certain cases, only several specialties in medicine can be fully integrated further into group practice with many departments, each with a different medical sector.
Service Quality
1.What is Service Quality?
Service quality is usually seen as an evaluation or a rating that defines what clients can expect from a certain business. In each firm the service providers and the managers want to know what their customer feedback is, how they are perceived by the outside and what they can do to improve.
To do so, three academic researchers Valerie Zeithaml, A. Parasuraman and Leonard L. Berry introduced in 1988 a five-dimensions device that allows the firm managers to calculate the quality of a service in their business. This device comes in the form of a questionnaire that measures what a customer can expect and their impression they receive after being served, the five components of Service Quality also known as SERVQUAL are Reliability, Responsiveness, Tangibles, Assurances and Empathy having the acronym RATER.
A business with a low Service Quality is known to have bad customer service and the service received by the customers is worse than expected. Were as a business that has a high Service Quality has a good customer rating which equals a good customer service with a good functional, process and interactive quality.
These five-dimensions are not always on the same importance level so depending on the facility type they may vary importance.
2. The five dimensions of Service Quality in a Healthcare Department
Service quality in a healthcare department have to meet all the five dimensions in order for them to be in good working state and have their patients to be assured a respectable service.
2.1Reliability in a Healthcare Department:
Reliability is the ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. Consequently, in a healthcare department this leans towards their ability to meet their promises in regards of staying on schedule and not making their patients wait more than what they were expected to.
2.2 Responsiveness in a Healthcare Department
Responsiveness is the willingness to help customers and provide them with punctual service. In a Healthcare department, patients expect to have
2.3 Assurance in a Healthcare Department
Assurance is the knowledge and courtesy of employees and their ability to convey trust and confidence. In a healthcare department it’s important that they provide their patients with a high level of expertise with their doctors in order for them to be confident that they will have the best treatment possible.
2.4Empathy in a Healthcare Department
Empathy is the feeling of care and individualized attention the firm provides its customers. It is important to have a good empathy in order for the patients to trust they are in good hand and they are receiving the attention they deserve. Patients also expect their healthcare facility to providing a detailed description of their health status and trust that the decision for their treatment is rational. All these factors show consistency and quality for the patient to trust and see that the facility cares about their patients.
2.5 Tangibles in a Healthcare Department
Tangibles is the appearance of physical facilities, equipment, personnel, and communication materials. In a healthcare department it is crucial that they have the right equipment to treat their patients with, they keep the facility clean with good hygiene and that they hire the best personnel for the job.
Service Operations Strategy
Another important part of the healthcare operations management is the service operations strategy. The service operations strategy in a business is the framework for matching the service operations task and the service delivery system service so for example “the organisations must produce and deliver a service package which matches the expectations of their customers.” (Armistead, Service Operations Strategy, 1990) Since we are talking about healthcares , healthcares manages to deliver the service to their patients to give them a better health status but in the other hand they are still considered a business which needs to maximize their profits by creating the best possible strategy to run the healthcare in the most efficient way. Each healthcare business must have a business strategy focuses on what business units need to do to compete in the marketplace (Vadarajan & Clark, Journal of Business Research , 1994). It specifies the game plan the business has selected to maximize its long-term value to customers, and it outlines the resource deployments necessary to “win the game.” The best way to keep your business strategy on track is to analyze the results every now and then using the SWOT Analysis which shows you the strengths (S), weaknesses (W) and evaluates the opportunities (O) and Threats (T).
The SWOT analysis helps us leverage the business’s internal capabilities and helps us benefit from market opportunities while avoiding external threats. Two processes help us perfect the SWOT analysis, first, the internal audit of the firm helps identify its strengths and weaknesses in terms of facilities, workforce, technology, managerial talent, culture, and so on. The second process is the environmental scan helps the firm keep track of external forces over which it has no or limited control. The intent of this scan is to identify opportunities to gain competitive advantage and identify threats that should be avoided. These external forces are (a) the customers, (b) the legal/ political environment, (c) the economy, (d) societal trends, (e) the competition, and (f) suppliers of goods and knowledge services.
The internal audit is basically the internal strengths or weaknesses of the healthcare. For example some strengths could be your equipment and technologies being up-to-date; Other important internal factors could be the doctors, workers, and managers skills and abilities as well as the healthcare relationship with their patients and their reputation. On the other hand all those positives could be negatives if you do not have the right staff and advances on your side. For instance if your equipment is not up-to-date and you do not have a good reputation as a healthcare or your (staff members/ managers) are not well experienced enough to deal with the patients it would all affect the healthcare in a bad way.
The external forces that healthcares take into consideration are population growth in the area they are in and the financial state of the people in that area; if the population growth is increasing in a good rate and the financial state is doing well then those would be opportunities, if its the other way around they are considered threats . Another aspect could be the availability of government grants as well as the country’s economic state, like the inflation rate or unemployment rate because that shifts the demand and supply for labor to an opportunity or threat. Last but not least, the competition’s weaknesses and old technologies; if the competition has a strong management or reputation and they have better technological advances that would be considered a threat to the healthcare.
After conducting a SWOT analysis, the organization must take a more focused look at the competition, exploit its own strengths, determine which weaknesses can be overcome, formulate its vision, and maneuver for a competitive position. This exercise leads to the formulation of feasible business strategies that improve the chances of gaining and/or sustaining market dominance and assuring financial success. (Karuppan, Operations Management in Healthcare ,2016)