Operations Management and Lean Management in Healthcare
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Operations Management and Lean Management in Healthcare
Hospitals must improve performance over time to be able to provide efficient healthcare services in the changing environment. The UK Hospital Future Committee has analyzed possible modes of improvement that can help the healthcare sector. The committee developed 11 key principles to be observed by the facilities to meet its challenges. The principles emphasize that hospitals must provide support in identifying the pressures facing the solutions. Some of the key points in the committee’s ideas include assessing patient clinical experience and the accrued side effects and need for personalized services in meeting a wider range of needs.
Developed countries are experiencing an increasing number of cases of chronic diseases due to an aging population. The increase in demand for healthcare has brought major changes in demand for medical care. Most patients are aware of their medical sector rights, thus increasing prospects for the public health system. At the same time, healthcare facilities experience pressure to improve their services without financial support. With these issues in place, hospitals might be forced to change many functions of the health system. Hospitals should alter the functions with respect to factors like adequacy, efficiency, quality, and fairness. The process of change has been outlined in decision 24/2, which identifies citizens’ rights in the EU to access quality healthcare in a wide range of countries.
Description of the Case
Extensive research and studies have been conducted to identify specific conditions that should be changed or altered to improve healthcare delivery. However, the researchers are faced with several limitations that make the conclusions and recommendations unfit for implementation. There is a great need for research that identifies the changing trends in the healthcare sector. The research should look into issues like solutions developed and tools used. For instance, similar research conducted by Terra and Berssaneti (2018) describes hospitals based on plugging inclusion of different organizations, redesigning professionals’ and direct behaviors based on the organization’s interest. These changes are in respect with regulatory change’s main directives across the EU (Terra & Berssaneti 2018). The lack of clear information identifying the mode of designing and implementing the changes is visible. Critical issues like types of organizations affected based on perspectives behavior, and changes have not been addressed.
Current circumstances force facilities to comply with the new directives to maintain hospitals and primary healthcare providers’ activities. Also, Terra and Berssaneti (2018) observe that hospital prohibitions costs support the directives. The directives identify that the role of the hospitals in the region includes coordinating care and services through encouraging the practice of knowledge sharing between specialists and other workers, including nurses and providers in the network (Terra & Berssaneti 2018). This study focuses on analyzing the methods of gathering ideas and implementing suggested changes in the healthcare sector. This action would help improve the efficiency of healthcare and highlight shortcomings that cannot be identified through research.
The research is conducted and presented with respect to the basis and methods learned in this lesson. The research also focuses on identifying the most significant hospital reform pillars and the characteristics of their implementation. At the end of the paper, the key issues and conclusions are well outlined. Health spending has been a major concern among members of the European Union. The member states have reduced growth rates and public spending levels and focused on improving the healthcare sector that is experiencing financial pressure. The barriers to total improvement were experienced in the EU due to population changes and a significant increase in healthcare demand (Terra & Berssaneti 2018). The hospitals were left with the challenge of managing the competitive development in the EU.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
The healthcare crisis has led to the identification of similarities in the countries’ healthcare sector. Medical care quality, which was considered a primary concern, shifted to promoting more organizational and management approaches to improve care quality (Terra & Berssaneti 2018). The quality of healthcare received today depends not only on available resources, treatment, and effects but also on organizational integrity.
Weaknesses
Organizational changes have been widely researched over time. In the healthcare sector, the changes are applied in areas where poor management or implementation may lead to loss of resources and affect the quality of care negatively (Terra & Berssaneti 2018). This scenario necessitates the implementation of technical changes, whether strategic or not.
Threat and opportunity
A high level of coordination in teams is necessary for enhancing successful environmental and affluence integration. All-inclusive care requires understanding and comparing the skills and abilities of the teams involved. In the process, barriers to implementing the new developments are removed, and effective use of skills is enhanced (Terra & Berssaneti 2018). Organizational changes are performed in healthcare sectors where poor implementation may lead to loss of resources and negatively affect the quality of services.
Solution Implemented
One of the healthcare sector’s risks is isolation, which may be solved by applying social and technical methods in the process of management. This idea suggests that change focuses not only on technological and social means (Hallam & Contreras, 2018). The social and technical theory is mostly applied in enhancing integration in organizations. According to integration theory, the social facilities and technical systems must be designed and applied together to make them more effective. Design agencies whose relation between social factors and technology lead to the emergence of productivity and luxury are used (Hallam & Contreras, 2018). However, new technologies sometimes do not meet the organization’s expectations on the quality of services delivered. Such experiences prove that the achievement of an organization’s goals does not fully depend on improved systems.
Organizational structures focused on professional clinical leaders may be replaced with respect to the side-by-side model. As Hallam and Contreras (2018) assert, the new models have presented new labels to name the models, including ongoing patient care, full patient care, and intensive care. The model suggests the basic idea of planning the patient process based on the patient’s experience only. This idea would help in maintaining the structure of self-delivery and resource duplication (Hallam & Contreras, 2018). Lack of such structures in healthcare delivery leads to independence when using resources that exceeds responsibility regarding the need to incorporate different disciplines. The absence the structure also leads to poor communication and loss of resources, among others.
In practical terms, patients depend on the level of support and duration of hospitalization to survive. The units should fully be divided into clinical management based on the patient need for care. Specific criteria should not be applied as identified previously. The method applies to areas like the operating room, pieces of equipment, staff, and bed. The changes suggested by the new concept are based on a new way of thinking which incorporates the current trends in the healthcare sector (Hallam & Contreras, 2018). These trends are brought by economic and demographic factors in the EU community. Nurses should be provided with new administrative and coordination responsibilities with the help of a multidisciplinary team. This approach would help ensure improvement in the quality of healthcare without necessarily upgrading hospital facilities or technology. Issuing new responsibilities is efficient as it would help in relieving the financial pressure on most hospitals.
Conclusion
Patients should be classified using a criteria that eradicates any loops where resources are lost. The first approach may the duration required or taken by the patient while receiving medical attention. Categories like day hospitals, emergency hospitals, and those admitted for a few days fall under this group with long-term care and other services. The second criteria that can be applied is identifying the patient’s needs and level of medical attention required or the level of dependence on medical facilities in the hospital. These can be classified as level 0 and 1. Level 0 patients require less attention thus can be attended through routine hospital treatment for patients without special needs. On the other hand, level 1 patients require critical services, which include regular monitoring and depend on medical facilities. It is worth noting that both social and technical systems should be designed at the same time to ensure total integration. This can be achieved by utilizing the services offered by design agencies who are more focused on providing emergence and productivity to benefit the health sector and the patients.
References
Hallam, C., & Contreras, C. (2018). Lean healthcare: scale, scope and sustainability. International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326750472
Terra, J. D. R., & Berssaneti, F. T. (2018). Application of lean healthcare in hospital services: a review of the literature (2007 to 2017). Production, 28. https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=S0103-65132018000100402&script=sci_arttext