The Concept of Providing Quality Services: Service Design and Transformation - Essay Example

?Essentially, all businesses are based on the concept of providing quality services for a specified amount and/or the satisfaction after the same. Service providers, therefore, strive to ensure that they maintain an amicable flow of services as well as improve on their quality. In order to stay in business and achieve goals set by an organization, efficiency must be enhanced to provide the required catalyst for growth and expansion of any organization. Any organization that runs on persistent losses, despite services rendered need to change the approach of their goals to attain the desired objectives. Most organizations are faced with the financial crisis when the economic crunch hits and their businesses can barely survive. Such are the times that demand policies to cope with the ever-increasing cost of production of goods and services. It is, therefore, critical to invest in innovative measures, which ensure profitability of the organization during hard economic times. In relation to this, most organizations have adopted the lean concepts and incorporated them into their policies to remain in business and participate in the provision of goods and services. The lean philosophy is described as a non-terminating quest for perfection, which seeks to eliminate waste and its root causes (Sperl 208, p.23). Essentially, lean is a set of concepts and principles, which are used to ensure that customers enjoy the best value of the desired product while consuming little resources and maximum skills and knowledge of the workers (Case, et al 2010, p.4). This places the customer as the most important in the entire process of production and more so, in healthcare. In his manner, the desires and wellbeing of the customer are given veto priority, and his satisfaction takes centre stage. This is critical to organizations who must keep their cost of production at a minimal to maximize their profitability. Lean, a systematic approach, it is a continuing process of eliminating waste and activities that add no value in production. The process is based on improvement and development of new and better goals, once the previous ones have been realized. Lean concepts and principles influence the notion that there is always a better way of doing things to achieve organizational objectives (Kim, et al 2006, p.191). By the use of the lean culture, most production companies have realized unrelenting loyalty from its customers. There are five core principles of lean, which include specifying the value of a product from the customer’s point of view; identifying all steps that add value to the product while eliminating waste; make value flow at pull of the customer; involve and empower the employees, and continuously improve in the pursuit of perfection (Longo 2012, p.32). Learning to differentiate by value adding activities from non-value adding ones proves to be a crucial step towards the implementation of the lean concept. This step plays a critical role in enhancing efficiency by eliminating wastage of time and resources. Consequently, this enhances the flow of information ensuring appropriate channels and protocols are followed. Waste in relation to lean system of management describes the mishaps and hoops involved in the production. Among them include overproduction, overstocking, excessive motion, defects, and prolonged waiting time. These activities translate to reduced rates of production when in significant proportions and thus losses. Despite the enormous strides towards efficacy, lean concepts are often met with challenges during the implementation process. Traditionally, most service providers are of the notion that the utilization of machine or employee is merely enough without necessarily considering the consumer (Kovacheva 2010, p.41). It is for such school of thought that lean thinking is critical to avert overproduction and waste. As such, errors are identified in the production process; the cause of waste should be eliminated since repetitive amount too cumulative inefficiency within an organization. The uprooting of such root causes is more often than not met with resistance as many oppose change mainly due to fear of failure. In addition, most organizations seek to implement lean or lean sigma initiatives without having established guidelines and controls for performance control. Consequently, the organizations tend to produce of what the customer wants within limited timelines (Aitken n.d., p.6). This translates to overproduction leading to poor customer response due to inferior quality. Overproduction and overstocking holds down on the company’s accounts as they are deemed as assets. In order to implement lean concepts in an organization successfully, there is the need to address the issue of commitment among employees and within the leadership tier. Training on lean concepts should be impacted and translated to be a way of doing business and not as a mere program (Hagood, n.d). Another key element during implementation is communication within the organization, which is critical for its growth and efficiency. Management principles based on lean have been effectively utilized in most manufacturing companies over the years with tremendous success being recorded. Toyota, a renowned automobile maker has enjoyed its success by ensuring safety and well-being of its employees as well as maintaining a high quality in its production lines. Therefore, as a company among the pioneers of lean concepts, the Toyota production system is supported by continuous improvements and respect for people, which results in production of higher quality products at a lower cost. Just as other industries, healthcare is faced with enormous pressures and challenges, among them being cost of service, which is seen to grow at about twice the inflation rate. The escalating costs of healthcare and increased medical errors have created urgency to improve on the quality of services rendered as well as enhance efficiency in the delivery of healthcare services. Among the strategies that have been considered is the use of lean management principles, this management is known to shift the focus of employees towards the betterment of the customer by eliminating activities, which seem not to add any value to the production phase. Lean processes have increasingly become vital in boosting the effectiveness of the healthcare delivery systems; moreover, Lean initiatives in healthcare usually consequence in cheap service costs, and the release up of capacity to ease wait times exclusive of over-taxing staff or amenities (Lean Healthcare Online, n.d). Lean initiatives in healthcare aim at improving systems within the organisation, which are highly responsive to patient demands and ensure the provision of high quality services promptly. In addition, this approach is geared towards reducing the cost of operation and enhances profit margins. This is achieved by ensuring minimal wastage of resources, facilities and time, which translates to efficiency among the employees. The healthcare organisations are prone the dangers of monotonous procedures and development of a normal way of doing things. This eventually translates to poor performance by the medical staff leading to poor efficiency and wastage of time and resources. The adoption of lean initiatives within healthcare organisations has had its share of benefits ranging from better management of resources to satisfied consumers. The introduction of lean concepts has seen an increased employee satisfaction since they are continually involved in the decision making process. This is a guaranteed means of enhancing performance by ensuring proper utilisation of talents and resources to the benefit of the patient. Lean concepts in healthcare seek to shift the concerns towards the patient and provide treatment geared benefit the ailing. In this manner, care is tailor to suit the needs of the patient, as opposed to earlier protocols, which concentrated mostly on what was best for the physicians, nurses and administrators. This is in line with the first principle of lean initiatives, which identifies with the needs of the patient. In this way, priority is given to the patient, and the rest comes in second, which plays a critical role in avoiding overproduction and wastage of resources. Overproduction in essence entails production of redundant medical records, unscheduled procedures and multiple printing of laboratory results. Value streams need is identified when treating patients and structured treatment protocols established to aid in minimising time lost, thus reducing waste. Waste in healthcare services includes medication errors, wrong procedures, poor clinical outcomes, and retesting, missing records among others. Structured treatment protocols establish a standardised mode of handling patients, which makes the daily workload easy and enjoyable. Administrators in healthcare need to establish a means of sustaining and facilitating continuous improvements to the treatment process. This can be easily facilitated by empowering the employees (doctors and nurses) to participate in the continuing process of improvement effectively. It goes in a long way to make results measurable and eliminating the traditional shame and blame culture within the industry. In the same way, a well thought improvement strategy helps in enhancing efficiency among employees with enormous focus targeted on quality of service other than quantity. Therefore, with successful implementation of lean initiatives in healthcare, benefits are bound to be experienced at the organisation as well as among patients who seek healthcare services at the institution. This is attested by the success realised at various healthcare institutions after the adoption of lean initiatives. Among the institutions to adopt, the culture of lean production is ThedaCare system and the Virginia Mason Medical Centre. Both institutions have risen from the depth of crisis to their current rankings in the medical arena. The institutions experienced the resistance of change, but with time, success highlighted the end of financial and management crisis, which encourage cohesion among employees translating to increased overheads. Lean concepts within these institutions improved safety, productivity and eventually provided better working environment for the employees, which translates to increased job satisfaction (Jaap van Ede, 2010). ThedaCare, a community health system comprises of four hospitals northeast of Wisconsin that boast of being the third largest healthcare employer in the state. This status has seen the institution used a benchmark in all measures of clinical quality. ThedaCare system holds its commitment to fostering innovative thinking and adoption of fresh approaches when dealing with current healthcare challenges (simpler.com n.d., p.1). The applications of lean management skills aimed at relieving a down trodden and overburdened staff as well as improve on patient care. The goals of this exercise were met successfully with constant significant results, with collaborative care unit improving productivity and patient satisfaction by focussing on progression of care. This success has seen ThedaCare system health plan ranked first in the country for outpatient disease management (Porter and Jain 2007, p.10). The adoption of electronic record-keeping systems in most departments enhances communication and allows easy access by personnel during the dispensation of care. Quality and cost transparency has eventually become a supporting pillar to the institution with the metric data reports placing it at an advantage over other institutions. Similarly, Virginia Mason Medical Centre (VMMC) has had its share of the financial crisis and risen to be a reputable health institution. For long, VMMC board members and executives concentrated on creating a strategic plan that would put the patient needs first, but despite having a positive vision to become a quality leader they lacked a method to achieve it. An in-depth look at the Toyota production system and adoption of lean initiatives provided relief to the ailing institution. With its implementation, employees were encouraged to reduce waste creatively and add value for patients by finding areas to improve. Most physicians and nurses argued that they cannot be associated with a production line, eventually a number of them left the institution see they were not comfortable with the new culture. The lean model adopted by VMMC, dubbed Virginia Mason production system, significantly reduced staff walking distances within the medical centre and decreased the lead-time. The productivity gained by 44% and cut costs while improving on the quality of services rendered (Bohmer 2010, p.9). The importance of lean initiative cannot be over emphasised as its benefits far outweigh other programmes that aim at improving the quality of services within the healthcare industry. Essentially, lean is aimed at enhancing the quality of products by focussing on the customer while fully utilising available skills and minimising waste. To improve on the quality of products and services, lean seeks to create a viable environment for all to foster maximal efficiency. Consequently, efficiency eliminates waste in terms of activities that do not add value to the services rendered. In the same manner, safe environment created by lean initiatives promote employee satisfaction translating to increased productivity. In addition, adoption of lean principles in healthcare creates more capacity into existing programs, which allows for more growth (Institute for Healthcare Improvement 2005, p.3). Lean assists healthcare providers in reducing costs while increasing value of services rendered without compromising the quality of care, compliance or patient safety (VIPGroup, n.d). Lean address concerns facing most service providers by provide amicable solutions that involve minimal expenditures (Buggy 2005, p.4). For instance, healthcare facilities planning expansion of their premises can benefit from by ensuring full utilisation of available space or incorporating lean design into the new facilities. This ensures adequate utilisation of space, time as well as resources. In conclusion, similarities emerge when the health care is compared to other industries, and with this in mind, benefits of lean principles can be experienced with little or no effort. The lean concepts are clearly changing the landscape of healthcare delivery by encouraging efficiency, which cuts down on activities deemed not add value to patients’ healthcare while focusing on improving the quality of services. Without lean, healthcare is bound to face difficulty in meeting the ever-increasing demand of services at a lesser cost. References Sperl, T. (2008). Lean Concepts in Healthcare. Lean Fox Solutions. 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