Performance of a Privately Owned Blake Memorial Hospital - Essay Sample

Introduction to Operations Management, Logistics and Supply Management

In this essay, I will be looking into the performance of a privately owned Blake Memorial Hospital. Based on the case study, there are various problems that Blake Reid, the operations manager is expected to handle (Khovner, 2012). I will, however, focus on managing the quality of care and the stagnant revenues. I will also explore some of the ways that Blake can ensure that there is the maintenance of the quality and that there is also the revision on ways that the issue of stagnant revenues can be solved in Blake Memorial Hospital. From the research that I have carried, out I will be looking at the strategies that Blake can use to improve the two critical areas especially while putting in mind the operational, labour and the recruitment expenses that the hospital is presently expected to handle (Khovner, 2012). I will also look at the implications of the various ways that the execution of these strategies and tools will improve the hospital performance.

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Introduction to the Company and Introducing the Two Chosen Topics

Firstly, Blake Memorial is a clinic that is based in the Loris housing project (Khovner, 2012). The clinic is a sight sore and needs a complete overhaul if the quality of the health care administered in the clinic is going to improve. The hospital is a six-storied apartment that is heavily staffed by guards and theft proof doors. The Blake Memorial has five other clinics in the United States Including the Blake Memorial. As highlighted in the case vignette, the clinics are intended to offer affordable health care to the less privileged people in the housing projects. The daycare services include the outpatient services, minor surgeries with the facility containing an approximate of 60 wards with a capacity of 383 beds that are divided equally into three parts, the pediatric, the female and the male wards (Khovner, 2012). There have been disconcerting reviews by the patients about the lack of quality treatment care and the manager also noted that the revenues had stagnated.

Quality

Quality, as characterised by International Organisation for Standardization, is a relative idea and if the innate quality in the service meets the prerequisites of the client, it very well may be appraised as high quality (Carter, Kosmol, & Kaufmann, 2017). In a service industry, similar to health care, the involvement of the patient assumes a pivotal job in rating and appraisal of the nature of services. Quality in health services may involve fresher innovations, more up to date and viable prescription, and a higher staff to patient numbers, cost-effective, productivity, and adequacy of service execution (Cox, 1999). The health care sector involves the public framework with significant players including the Ministry of Health and Parastatals associations, and the private sector, which incorporates private profit-driven, Non-Governmental Organisations, and Religious Organisation (Chopra, 2018). In the health care industry, service quality has turned into an outstanding quality that needs to be met (Christopher & Holeweg, 2017) in giving patient fulfilment because conveying quality service influences the consumer loyalty, devotion, and money related benefit of a service organisation. In the medical realms, health care can be separated into two quality measurements: specialised quality and practical quality (Esper, Defee,& Mentzer, 2010). While specialised quality in the social health care area is characterised based on the technical precision of the health diagnoses and techniques or the conformance to proficient particulars, practical quality alludes to the way in which the health services benefit is conveyed to the patients.

Total Quality Management (TQM) in the service industry as in the case of healthcare is different from a goods business such as an automotive company (Christopher, 2016). In the first place, there are abstract elements to the service that makes the customer's expectations to be hard to understand. Customers will have varying opinions and anticipations of the ways that the service will influence them. Consider for instance goods businesses have no business taking into perspective the image of the company as long as the end product is quality. On the other hand, the organisations providing services with the nature and the excellence of the service is the determining factor on the quality of the end-product (Christopher, 2016). In Blake Memorial, the patients appreciate and critic on the services that are administered. For health care centres, there is the necessity for the service needs to augur the reason that the patients are using it. Patients arrive with varying health issues that implies that there is the necessity to provide care, therapeutic services and comfort the ailing clients.

One of the TQM tools that are essential in improving the performance of the Blake Memorial is the tool of benchmarking. The benchmarking is an aspect that can be described as the process is assessing the performance of business compared to the other companies. Internal benchmarking can be utilised when the company is big enough which will help in the sustenance of the costs and reduce extra spending (Favezi & Loughlin, 2017). In Blake Memorial, the company has set up benchmark standards for all their clinics, and the measures include aspects such as patient satisfaction, respect, quality of medical care, and the quality of staff. In an effort achieve the three standards of excellence in the clinics, there is the intricate need for the hospitals to use the three Key Performance Indicators commonly known as (KPI) (Esper et al., 2010).

Nevertheless, the internal benchmarking policy is not plausible since the lack of adequate infrastructure and trained personnel to execute the services without having to tamper with the quality of the services. Also, patient satisfaction is rated as being below five per cent when compared to the quality of the other hospitals in the area. It is hence essential that an adequate solution is devised such that the employees are exposed to the hospitals that do not run under the administration of Blake Memorial (Khovner, 2012). A possible Hospital that could be used for benchmarking would be South Bay Hospital that is publically owned. The South Bay Hospital enhances the patient satisfaction by frequently upgrading the health facilities that are below par. The hospital also puts into consideration the importance of having a local needs assessment carried out and implemented together with opinions given by the health inspection units across the county (Khovner, 2012). The cohesion and the communication between the Hospital and neighbouring community ensure that the ease in identifying the critical areas of improvement is taken advantage of while improving the quality of the health care service (Khovner, 2012). Blake memorial has not developed a relationship outside the patient care, and hence there is no proper communication between the hospital and the community.

Stagnated Revenue

Blake Memorial is a Private Company that is meant to prioritise the need for creating wide margins of profit as they look for ways to cater to their patient's needs. However, there has been stagnant revenue that is resulting in affecting the performance of the staff and consequently degrading the service value for the patients (Mentzer et al., 2001). Before looking for a solution to solving the problem of stagnant revenues, it is vital that one explores the reasons that would lead an organisation to have stagnant revenue. One of the reasons that would result in a decrease or stagnation in the profits is the occurrence of the decline in sales. Secondly, there could be an increase in expenses especially since Blake Memorial is undergoing a renovation in some of the wards (Khovner, 2012). Blake Memorial is a hospital that is dedicated to ensuring that there are measures that are undertaken to improve the sales and hence improve its profit margin. However, the hospital has been argued to be below par in meeting the critical concerns in health care for both the patients and the employees. It is hence prudent that the Operating Manager, Blake looks for ways to solve the low-quality claims by the patients.

One of the ways that the challenge of low sales is solved is through the Employee Empowerment. Involving the employees in every aspect of the service delivery will play a significant role in ensuring that the employees feel appreciated and will also help in handling the employees being empathetic and compassionate to the patients. The chance to train the employees on service delivery to the patients is also an ingenious way of making the employees feel empowered and subsequently affect the quality of the job that is going to be delivered (Kathawala & Abdou, 2003). Ensuring that there is a change in the business culture is one of the ways that would help to improve the stagnating profit range since the people would be motivated to take the initial step in attaining better performance in Blake Memorial Hospital.

Another strategy that can be used to solve the stagnated revenue would be the need to use the monetary incentive to drive the employees to be interested in the delivery of quality services. It is, however, important to note that the human resource theory stipulates that money cannot be used for long-term motivation and unless there are other motivating factors, money alone cannot drive a worker enough to want to offer better qualities (Lewis & Yildrim, 2002). It is clear that the Hospital is facing issues in the human resource area that ultimately culminate to the delivery of low-quality services and a high turnover of the patients which eventually influence the rates of profits that they are likely to earn (Lewis & Yildrim, 2002). Motivated workers would mean that there are lesser chances of employee turnover and hence have employees who are experienced in handling patients. Thus there will be an increased patient satisfaction that will, in turn, improve the stagnated sales.

Hertzberg's Two-Factor Theory of motivation explores the factors that influence the people to have the motivation and be productive in their activities. The theory categorised the two factors that help in shaping employee motivation and satisfaction (Gibson, Mentzer,& Cook, R, 2005). The motivator factors are those that assist in the satisfaction of the employees and also motivate them to work harder (Choudhary et al., 2013). Some of the examples of the motivator factors include aspects such as enjoying one's work, feeling acknowledged of one's effort and even the monetary incentives. The hygiene factors are those that can lead to dissatisfaction and result in being demotivated to work hard towards the realization of one's goal if they are not present in a working environment. Some of the examples include the company policies, salary and the associations with the managers and co-workers (Gibson et al., 2005). It is important to note that both factors played a role in increasing motivations but worked independently of each other's influence.

Economic Considerations and Social Considerations of the Organisation

A functional human resource strategy that can be utilised by Blake is considering the Hertzberg approach since research has established that the varying psychological and financial needs are required to be used concurrently to appeal to the employees to work hard. Blake can apply this theory to increase motivation among employees without a substantial increase in the operation costs (Fetterman, 1988). Given that every challenging job enhances the motivator factors, there will be an increase in the motivation among employee...