Arnold Palmer Hospital: Managing Operations - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Its Executive Director Kathy Swanson’s improved system about achieving quality health care is beyond question as she was able to implement various techniques to determine problems as well as how to solve them. Empowering the work force towards achievement of goals is employed by Swanson aside from directly being in contact with customers or patients. However, quality health care is not only achievable through management approach but also on processes and supply chain of which guaranteed if not availability of quality health care products and services are provided to customers. This paper will try to determine the approach in managing the quality of services, processes and supply chain from both a strategic and tactical viewpoint of Arnold Palmer Hospital in consideration of their existing practices. Approaches in Managing Quality Services Quality service amongst health providers is of paramount importance. In fact, health care providers across the world have been exerting efforts to improve their operations and management in order to meet their patients’ expectation and satisfaction. In the first place, it is important to give proper attention to their patients’ assessment because healthcare organizations exist due to patients. In the health sector, quality is practically referred to the totality of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs (American Society for Quality, cited in Heizer & Render, 2008). Arnold Palmer Hospital The Arnold Palmer Hospital, one of the most important hospitals in the United States which provide health care services to both women and children, is one of these many health care providers that immediately implemented approaches in managing quality services. The underlying reasons of the organization in improving their services are to; increase quality and efficiency, raise patients’ satisfaction, protect their company reputation, improve their ability to compete, reduce exposure to liability, and reduce risks and cost (Institute of Medicine, 2001). Quality Management Approaches In order for Arnold Palmer Hospital to meet these goals, it is important to employ the quality management approaches that include the following: continuous quality improvement, employment empowerment; benchmarking; Just-in-time (JIT); and total quality management (TQM) tools (Heizer & Render, 2008). Continuous quality improvement: When an organization wants to improve on quality it may tend to increase costs; however, with the right quality improvement approach these organizations are able to improve quality while maintaining low costs. The continuous quality improvement is an approach that was already employed by Arnold Palmer Hospital in order to undertake their operational changes such what needs to be improved and what methods/strategy is available to assess the improvements. In addition, to implement change, the APH management has involved all the staff from the highest position down to the lowest position to work as a team. The management emphasized that quality service is everyone’s responsibility; hence every employees are given extensive orientation on quality, patients’ satisfaction, and their role in continuous improvement. To improve their operations such admissions, inventory, food service delivery, billing, vacated room turnaround time, the APH may need to adopt the Kaizen and Six Sigma model. The Kaizen is a Japanese term for continual improvement which is also referred to PDCA, Shewart or Deming Cycle. The model is comprised of 4 steps: Plan – design or revise business process components to improve results; Do – ...Download file to see next pagesRead More