Business Proposal on "Managing Business Operations"

Business Proposal 7 pages (3071 words) Sources: 7 Style: Harvard

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Swedish Medical Center Case Study

Background- Swedish Medical Center is a large medical center located in the Seattle and surrounding suburbs in Washington State. It was founded in 1910 and has merged and acquired other properties, most recently Stevens Hospital in Edmonds, Washington, in 2010. The hospital continually ranks in the top for a number of specialties, including cancer, geriatrics, and orthopedics. Swedish continually outperforms other Puget Sound Institutions in degree of customer satisfaction, and ranks 10 points above the national average in terms of patient satisfaction (U.S.News, 2011). Swedish has nine campuses and several clinics in the Puget Sound area. It has over 1,200 licensed beds, almost 7,000 employees, and 2,300 licensed physicians in every medical and surgical specialty. In 2009 there were almost 110,000 emergency room admissions, 41,000 inpatient admissions, and almost 33,000 surgeries performed. Due to its national prominence, Swedish holds as many as 600 clinical trials (federal and commercial) at any one time. Since Swedish is a not-for-profit medical center, besides focusing on the community, it donates about $15 million per annum in direct charity care to the area. Swedish income was $1.4 billion at the end of 2009, but remains needful of the Swedish Foundation funding to continue to commit to solid medical excellent ((Swedish Medical Center, 2011).

Process-based capabilities- Healthcare organizations now face increasing pressure to improve their operations, provide evidence of their continued quality, and the efficiency of the organization. For the modern organization, this means that managers who have traditionally focused on the quality of care now must now change paradigms in mid-stream and review the overall management practice for the sake of effectiveness, patient safety, and even cutting edge techniques (Kujala & Lillrank, 2006). In fact, this is so critical that reports from the Institute of Medicine suggest that almost 60 per cent of medical errors related to hospital deaths in the United States could have been prevented with a proper safety protocol and change of procedure (Institute of Medicine, 2000).

For Swedish, process improvement became part of the overall strategic planning process as a tool used to solve local problems in the 1990s. Swedish was in an expansion mode, and the concept of process orientation was not just a management tool but more to identify problems in patient flow, resource management, and staff efficiencies. This process has evolved over the years to become a more robust management system that uses the Balanced Scorecard approach, allowing strategic planning to move from an economic discourse to a more balanced approach that used the patient, process and learning perspectives, staff satisfaction, and community relations as a model for continued improvement. In the same vein, greater emphasis was placed on the ability for Swedish managers at all levels to understand, map, and continually improve the important parts of care management within the organization. For Swedish, A Balanced Scorecard approach is often seen as one of the key tools that translate strategy into performance. . The balanced scorecard model is a clear direction outlining what the organization should measure to balance the financial output. The scorecard retains financial measurement as a summary of their business performance. Moreover, the scorecard will highlight an integrated set of measurement that will link customers, processes, resources, and performance to long-term financial success. The balanced scorecard is a tool that provides the company the framework that translates vision and strategy into actionable tasks. The scorecard is a set of performance measures allowing management a dashboard view of their business. These performance measurements are used to aid the company in setting goals and manage the business's strategic plan. The balanced scorecard model will support the strategic plan and implementation by uniting all actions of an organization into a common understanding of the goal; it will provide feedback for both internal processes and the external outcome to improve strategic performances and results continuously (Langabeer & Napiewocki, 2000; Stevens, 2006).

Resources- Swedish has some of the best medical minds in the entire country, as well as a staff of over 1,500 physicians and 4,000 employees. Recent human resource figures indicate that within the non-medical field there are about 25 per cent of the executives have an MBA or are currently working on an advanced degree. Fifty per cent of executives have at least a Bachelor's, and most have hours towards an advanced degree (Crosby, 2011). Additionally, because of its national attention, Swedish has a considerable amount of private and Federal grant money, with much of the private money being used to fund advanced strategic planning research and development. In addition to general medical and surgical care, Swedish is known as a regional referral center, providing specialized treatment in areas such as cardiovascular care, cancer care, neuroscience, orthopedics, high-risk obstetrics, pediatric specialties, organ transplantation and clinical research (www.swedishcare.org).

Technologies -- Being at the forefront of the technological revolution in health care has been a part of Swedish's mission from the beginning. The half-life of technology is such that scientific and technological advances drive a number of business processes at all stages. There are demographic modifiers to this as well -- the number of people over 65 is expected to double by 2030, taxing the healthcare technology paradigm even more. Many believe this is directly in relation to the improvement in medical technology. One of the fortunate factors for Swedish, however, is their proximity to Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft. Microsoft worked with Swedish over the years to develop Amalga -- a database management system that allows disparate data (patient, billing, medication, tests, surgery, office visits, population and resource management) to be stored, accessed and used as a strategic tool across multiple facilities (Tu, 2011). Swedish president and CEO Rod Hochman, M.D. noted, "Healthcare reform requires health systems to do more with less. Amalga is a key technology enabler that will allow us to efficiently combine data stored in disparate IT systems across multiple facilities and use it to uncover opportunities to improve performance and the quality of patient care across the care continuum" (Microsoft News Ceter, 2011). Amalga addresses a common and critical challenge of healthcare providers -- integrating vast amounts of clinical, administrative and financial information that flows in and out of disparate information systems, and tailoring that information for use by physicians, analysts, laboratory technicians, nurses and administrators. Amalga takes advantage of health enterprises' investments in existing health IT solutions, making it possible for the entire organization to gain quick access to data and turn that information into critical knowledge that facilitates better decision-making and improved patient outcomes (MS News Center). In addition, Swedish remains committed to cutting edge new technologies in imaging, cancer care, osteopathic medicine, neurology and of national importance, Hepatitis C and liver disease (Swedish Medical Center, 2011).

Key tactical activities- Tactically, Swedish is set up to provide a broad range of programs that support strategic direction. At present, they have over one hundred medical services that are community based. These include Addiction Recovery, a major institute on Breast Cancer, Childbirth Services and Education, Endoscopy, OB/GYN specialists, Pediatric Neuroscience, Wound Healing and Wellness Works. Each is designed to help fit the specific needs of the Puget Sound Community, as well as a key magnet area for the Pacific NW and especially patients who need to fly in from Alaska. The primary tactical activities for Swedish are:

Cancer Institute -- The Swedish Cancer Institute has been open since 1932 and is a collaborative, multidisciplinary service that focuses on the patient, not the disease. The major difference between Swedish and other hospitals is that besides advanced and aggressive medical care, they offer a wide range of complementary treatments and services designed to work with the holistic side of patient care -- emotional, psychological and spiritual.

Emergency Services -- ER services are available as first line tactical medical care at all seven locations. They use sophisticated technology and patient information and have teams of experts in virtually all specialties. Swedish Emergency Services is dedicated to all patients who need care, regardless of their ability to pay.

Home Care - Home Health Care for people recovering from illness, accidents or surgeries, or those living with a chronic health condition. Hospice and palliative care, which focuses on comfort and quality of life for patients with a life-limiting illness. Infusion Treatments, such as nutrition, antibiotics, fluids and chemotherapy. Telephone access to a registered nurse 24 hours a day, seven days a week

Neuroscience Center -- Besides top-notch neuroscience care, Swedish Neuroscience Institute offers access of its specialists through TeleHealth, programs that use telemedicine computer technology to link Swedish experts to clinics, hospital and emergency department in communities throughout Washington State.

Pediatric Specialty Care -- The Pediatric Care units service about 20,000 families yearly with about 2,500 procedures. Swedish is at the forefront of tactical applications in pediatric epilepsy, infectious disease, cardiology, and most recently, sports medicine.

Surgical Services -- 31,000 surgeries per annum including the latest surgical equipment using robot-assisted surgery and minimally invasive techniques (laser, endoscopy, etc.). Besides serving the Puget Sound, a number of Swedish… READ MORE

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