Professional Competition and Modernising the Clinical Workforce in the National Health Service - Case Study Example

Developing a Strategic Approach Introduction Jim’s Care Center is a company, functioning in the health care sector of the US. The company aims for offering quality services at affordable price so as to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. However, the company needs to make strategic decisions so as to achieve the intended objectives (Squires, 2007). The previous study has made it evident that the health care sector is experiencing rapid environmental changes and as a result of that companies are highly affected. For example, the great economic depression has forced human beings to spend less on health insurances and in consequence the health checkup activities also lessened, except the emergency cases. Apart from that, several government policies such as Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) where both uninsured and insured American citizens are guaranteed with the right of receiving medical attention at lower rates. This can harm the financial health of Jim’s Care Center (Wallace, 2006). Apart from that, the internal factors such as recruiting and retaining qualified employees. Hence, it is essential to devise relevant strategies that will allow the firm to remain consistent with the market situations. The first step in ensuring proper functioning of the business and ensure prosperity of the business is to set a relevant mission and vision statement. In addition, it is also essential to develop strategic goals for the firm as that will allow them to follow a proper direction and the process will be more systematic. In the subsequent sections, the mission and vision statement of the company will be developed and along with that the strategic goals of the firm will also be formulated. Apart from that, service delivery strategy and support components required will be discussed. Lastly, on the basis of the findings of the study, recommendations pertaining to the specific adaptive strategy or combination of adaptive strategies that would be most effective in ensuring that the organization achieves its strategic goals and approaches to manage those strategies will be clearly discussed. Mission and Vision Statement The mission statement for the company is discussed below: - The mission of Jim’s Care Center is to provide health care services to the people at an affordable price and continue to offer medical consultation to the patient till the time he/she is fully cured. The vision statement for the company is detailed below: - The vision statement of Jim’s Care Center is to make offer people make this world free from diseases. We believe that along with quality and timely treatment, sympathetic view and price affordability, together we can curb any disease and offer human being a life that has no health issues. Strategic Goals The goals and objectives of a firm act as pathway for a business. It gives direction to a firm that in turn allows them to function in a systematic manner. A number of scholars have emphasized on the fact that setting business goals provide business houses with a structured business framework (Bate & Robert, 2006). In the similar way, Buchan (2004) echoed the statement by highlighting that a business is supposedly to meet failures if functions without proper business goals. Some of the key advantages or benefits that Jim’s Care Center will receive for setting strategic goals are motivating the workforce, helping stakeholders, attracting new clients, aiding in the process of performance evaluation and meeting financial target. As mentioned above, since, the aim of Jim’s Care Center is to provide health care services to the people at an affordable price and at the same time offer quality services. The following strategic goals will be consistent with the company’s mission and vision statement: - 1. To increase the number of seats in the curing centre so that we can treat numerous patients at a time and also recruit more physicians to ensure proper care of the patients has been taken. 2. To install modern medical equipments and technologies and update the present infrastructure so as to ensure that the company offers the most appropriate treatment with modern equipments. 3. To recruit and retain qualified staff members having the ability to deliver world class services. In addition, staff members who are kind-hearted, considerate and concerned individuals will be given more importance as the aforementioned traits are extremely important for a person wanting to make career in this field. This will allow the firm to gain competitive advantage in the market place and will ultimately lead to business development. Recommendation The current business scenario can be dubbed as turbulent and is expected to get worse, if the instability of market continues. Hence, it is extremely important for Jim’s Care Center to devise a strategy that is flexible and adaptive in nature. In addition, a flexible strategy will also allow the firm to enhance efficiency. The following is the recommended strategy for the firm: - 1. Recruitment of people with adequate technical knowledge about medical science and portrays kind-hearted, considerate and concerned nature. This is because, employees with both management and technical knowledge will be able to provide quality services, which will add to the satisfactions process of the consumers and at the same time can take care of the patients at emergency times. From the business perspective this will help the company to position itself as a firm that has highly competent and diverse manpower. This in turn will increase the trust levels of the patients. The aim of the firm i.e. to cure patients will be also satisfied and with this competent workforce, Jim’s Care Center will be able to deal easily with the changing market landscape. A number of companies from various fields of business have achieved competitive advantage through competent workforce. For example, companies such as IBM, Novartis, and Nestle etc. have been able to achieve business excellence by embracing employees with dual expertise (Currie, Marti & Finn, 2009). Service Delivery Strategy and Support Components Service delivery is one of the essentials tasks of a company belong to the service sector. The service delivery is concept of services marketing which is best described as the process used by companies to quickly and effectively deliver the services to the intended recipient. In most of the cases, service delivery is directly related to the degree of superiority of an organization. In the similar way, service delivery strategy is highly important for Jim’s Care Center. The following are the recommended delivers strategies application of which can endow the firm with streamlined supply chain. For a company belonging to health care sector it needs to give importance to the entire value chain. For example, there might be good promotion, which drive customers, but the company can lack the necessary resource for healing patients. Some of the requirements of the firm are the equipments required for diagnosing diseases, testing equipments and most importantly medicines. However, in this section the service delivery strategy of the firm will be enlightened. 1. Jim’s Care Center should deliver services from the clinic itself. Since, the clinic is equipped with all the modern amenities the quality of the services delivery will be obviously superior. 2. The company is also recommended to deliver their services by opening small clinics at various locations of the country, which will deal with emergency cases. 3. Jim’s Care Center can also offer online consultation to the patients and can charge accordingly. Hence, this will be an additional revenue stream for the firm and can satisfy both the conditions i.e. to gain competitive edge over the rivals and generate a sense of trust among the customers. The three support components are as follows: - 1. Inbound Logistics: - The inbound logistics is one of the crucial components as it is required for getting access of the raw materials. 2. Service Delivery Logistics: - The service delivery logistics can be in the form of ambulance or medical vans, which are responsible for providing emergency services to the patients. 3. Application Software and Firms infrastructure: - In this turbulent business situation, applications software plays indispensible role. In the context of Jim’s Care Center, application software can be really useful as it will help them in tracking inventory of medicines, patient record and satisfaction levels of the customers. Approach to Manage Strategy The company is strongly recommended to appoint or give the responsibility to the operations manager, who will be responsible for executing the plans. The operations manager should also schedule the activities and make a routine of the daily activities, so that the process remains streamlined. However, he\she should be supported by the supply chain manager as well as one expert from the technical team. Conclusion Jim’s Care Center is a company, functioning in the health care sector of the US. The company is seeking growth by offering quality services and achieving an edge over the competitors. In this respect, the company is recommended with various innovative strategies such as service delivery logistics, online consultation etc. It is believed that the application of the aforementioned strategies will lead the firm towards success. References Bate, P. & Robert, G. (2006). Build it and they will come’ – or will they? Choice, policy paradoxes and the case of NHS treatment centres. Policy and Politics, 34 (4), 651-672. Buchan, J. (2004). What difference does (‘good’) HRM make? Human Resources for Health, 2 (6), 1478-1485. Currie, G., Martin, G. & Finn, R. (2009). Professional competition and modernising the clinical workforce in the NHS: possibilities and limits to the development of the specialist generalist in primary care. Work, Employment & Society, 23 (2), pp. 267-284. Squires, M. (2007). Independent sector treatment centres: a leap in the dark, British Journal of General Practice, 57 (536), 250-252. Wallace, A. (2006). Independent sector treatment centres: how the NHS is left to pick up the pieces. British Medical Journal, 332 (7541), p. 614. Read More