Five steps to effective healthcare management

How do you achieve a business operation that not only focuses on supporting the primary process, but also makes a significant contribution to realising the mission of a healthcare organisation? In other words, business operations with impact? Jan Kamp and Frank van den Bos from Improven telling about this.

In recent years, many healthcare organisations have taken steps to get their operations in order. Processes and systems have been brought under control and have become more efficient. Customer-centricity of the primary care process has created synergy in operations.

Some healthcare organisations have placed parts of operations in a shared service centre or outsourced. All these lead to mature business operations, which are needed to support the primary care process.

Staff

Currently, many healthcare organisations are working on finding adequately skilled healthcare staff. Recruitment and selection processes are being put in order, training more people, partnerships, and so on. It can be compared to car manufacturers who started making fuel-efficient petrol cars in the last 20 years while fuel is slowly running out. We have to do it, but it is not the solution to the long-term problem.

Specialisation

How then? Nothing new; through innovation. There are already many innovations being deployed on a small scale. Some of these innovations will become commonplace and will cause the ICT component within a healthcare organisation to rise sharply. Now it is about 1-2 per cent of total costs and mainly involves office automation and functional systems. This is expected to rise to 10-20 per cent. In addition, it is of course important to make choices as to which services you do or do not want to provide and set up your organisation accordingly. Specialisation, therefore, instead of diversification, also within operations.

Questions

Do you have an overview of the innovations being developed at home and abroad? Or does your internal management still require too much attention? Which developments are promising and what will they mean in your organisation? Innovations and projects will increasingly be on the MT's agenda. Do you have the people in-house who can lead such processes? What does the business case look like? Are there sufficient financial resources to fund such investments? Are you considering cooperation with other healthcare organisations or is outsourcing to a supplier the better choice? How do the internal stakeholders view this? Do they share your vision or are they still on the lines of making the petrol car better?

All questions you know the answers to better than we do. However, we do know from experience that starting well in time on the last question is the most important.

What steps need to be taken?

1. Formulate a shared vision of business operations of the future
2. Determine your organisation's maturity level
3. Name the strategic risks
4. Set the change agenda
5. Realise the change agenda

Our advice on these steps: start today, make time and have fun!

This article was also posted on Skipr: https://www.skipr.nl/blogs/id3974-in-vijf-stappen-naar-effectieve-bedrijfsvoering-in-de-zorg.html