Application Of Logistics And Operations In Healthcare Industry

Concepts of Logistics and Operations Management

According to Haksever and Render (2018), operations management is mainly concerned with the designing and controlling process that is concerned with the production of goods and services. It is involved with taking responsibility of the business operations that are efficient in terms of application of few yet effective resources. This usually helps organisations to meet the requirements of the customers and is concerned in managing an entire production system. Operations help in the manufacturing of products, manage quality and create services. It is considered as one of the major functions of an organisation along with supply chain management.

Logistics is a detailed arrangement and implementation of complex operations within an organisation. Christopher (2016) stated that logistics could be considered as a flow of things that exists between the point of origin and the point of consumption so that the requirements of the customers can be met. The resources that are managed include physical items like the materials, equipments and any other products that are manufactured by an organisation. The essay sheds light on the application of the concepts of logistics and operations in order to understand related theories such as total quality management, leadership and triple bottom line. The company considered for the essay is the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital (RNOH).

RNOH is a specialist orthopaedic hospital that is located in Greater London, United Kingdom. It is part of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital NHS Trust (Rnoh.nhs.uk 2018). The purpose of the hospital is to provide comprehensive range of neuro-musculoskeletal health care in the United Kingdom. The hospital was founded in 1905 and consists of about 220 beds and as an affiliation with the University College in London (Rnoh.nhs.uk 2018).

One of the topics chosen for the essay is that of quality. Quality is an important issue in hospitals as the quality normally denotes the services that are provided by the hospitals. As stated by Mangan, Lalwani and Lalwani (2016) quality provides and organisation with an added advantage in the market as it meets the expectations of the customers. In the case of hospitals, the application of Total Quality Management Tools that is required for maintaining quality is considered as an important aspect for development.

The second topic that is chosen is that of leadership. As stated by Mahadevan (2015) leadership is important in hospitals due to the presence of a vast number of employees. In order to maintain the association of the employees with one another it is necessary to ensure that collaboration takes place. Glac (2015) also stated that leaders in hospitals have a huge duty, as they need to maintain a balance between being strict with the employees and as well, as remain friendly with the customers.

Total Quality Management in Healthcare Industry – A case study on RNOH

Choices of topic

Topic 1: Total Quality Management Tools

Originally started in Japan in the 1980s, the idea of TQM has spread to the western countries and now has become an integral part of all firms. In case of the healthcare industry, this plays quite significant role. Hospital initiatives, customer satisfaction and government regulations have pushed the boundary of healthcare services and thereby the hospitals have undertaken TQM services. Bromiley and Rau (2016) have defined that TQM is a comprehensive strategy improving the quality of the services through implementation of collaborative strategy. The authors have further stressed that in the later part of the decade the depiction of the healthcare industry have changed quite a lot.

At the beginning, it was just a producer-oriented industry but now it has shifted to customer oriented where satisfying the customers are mantra. Thereby RNOH has also undertaken this approach to provide the beast approach in all of UK. One of the most prominent is the use of feedback through telephone (Mahadevan 2015). As per the latest news, the director has introduced to feedback which the visitors and the patients can use to provide their feedback on their time at the hospital and their experience of staying here as well as giving some input on the services provided.

Rushton, Croucher and Baker (2014) have aligned with this citing that one of the most important factors of TQM is the focus on customer and getting obsessed with the overall quality of the service provided. This questionnaire has provided with enough proof that the organisation is very much engrossed with procuring high quality service to their patients. The first step is to identify their needs and factors making them feeling discomfort. Goetsch and Davis (2014) have highlighted that although the above two factors are of primary importance, however, without long-term commitment, the TQM services will fall flat incurring huge losses for the company. In case of RNOH, they have used it to provide high quality of nursing services.

They have started this rotation of the nurses where the nurses, mostly newly graduate, are rotated among various nursing settings which considerably increases their knowledge thus giving them enough training to handle any kind of situation. Therefore, the patients will get elevated service, which is one of the primary goals of the company. At Arnold’s children hospital, they have another way of introducing the TQM tools. They have implemented the long-term commitment through investing in 5 Million dollars for the neurological care at Florida. Androniceanu (2017) have stated that now the number of the children is coming with neurological issues so this is a necessary step to provide all kinds of services to the patients.

Leadership in Healthcare Industry – A case study on RNOH

Another important tool of TQM is effective teamwork, which can do wonders for the organisation. At Arnold’s they have introduced community services to integrate their services at the local places and communicating with the children. They have introduced satellite offices to expand their services. In these services, there will be kid’s friendly waiting and emergency rooms. This will decrease the dissatisfaction and the complaints of the patients regarding their in-patient time. At RNOH, they have implemented training and emergency rotation of the nurses as platform to build teamwork. Teamwork is quite crucial at a hospital where multidisciplinary teams come together to work on a complex case involving care providing to any patient or even saving one’s life.

Dale et al. (2016) have opined that at RNOH, they provide a strong support to the nurses discouraging them to work alone and pushing them to work in teams so that they get the basic training of the working in multispecialty teams from the very day of their joining. This gives better result in handling adverse situations. Moreover, this also encourages them to analyse the issues and barriers faced in such teamwork. Coming to the next tool, called education and training, RNOH is doing excellent services by providing a platform for over 60 on-going researches and training simultaneously.

The hospital has also tied up with University College London Institute of Orthopaedics and Musco-skeletal sciences to provide research services. Ross (2017) is of opinion that what puts this hospital in front is their input of patient’s feedback and their nonprofessional knowledge in the on-going research. Arnold’s is a good hospital but this firm has surpassed it by providing all round services and using TQM services to excel its performance and provide better patient care.

Topic 2: Leadership

Leadership in hospital industries can be considered as one of the topics that need to be considered in terms of hospital sector. This is mainly because the leadership techniques in hospitals focus on the application of more than one effective technique in the hospitals. As stated by Bolman and Deal (2017) it is necessary that leadership be imposed in hospitals so that it can continue to reap the benefits of provided. In the case of RNOH, the importance of leadership is that it can help with aligning the mission and vision of the hospital. It is necessary that an organisational vision and mission be formulated and maintained so that it can help in its growth.

Conclusion

In the case of RNOH, the mission of the hospital is to provide the best health care in the English region. At the same time, spreading all across England is also necessary as it can help in the growth of the hospital. Brandon?Jones (2015) stated that in order to achieve this, it is necessary that hospitals have a good leader. RNOH can benefit from a leader as it can gain the necessary guidance required for the development of the hospital. Leaders can define the manner in which the hospital needs to be maintained so that effective mission and vision can be made. As seen from the case of Arnold’s children, leadership provided by Arnold helped the hospital to reach a good high for its development and process. Therefore, it can be said that leadership provides effective analysis of the vision and mission and this can help RNOH to complete achieving its aims.

At the same time, leadership can help in establishing an effective communication strategy. This includes making the employees belief that communication with the leaders is possible and that it can help them to bring about changes in an organisation. According to Fairhurst and Connaughton (2014), for a hospital like RNOH, communication is important as it is one of the largest and fast growing hospitals in Britain. Hence, it is important that leadership play a vital role in the development of the hospital particularly on the idea of communication within one hospital department with another.

Similarly, it is also in the best interest of the leaders to ensure smooth communication as it can help in providing effective guidance as well as groom a future leader. Hence, it can be said that communication along with mission and vision are some of the most important aspects on which leadership needs to focus its strategies. In the words of Northouse (2018), the importance of leadership does not end with it. One of the main components of hospitals is to ensure that its gains buy-in from senior members. This involves selling of medicines to the customers at a price that is normally higher than the average sales. Hence, clear and constant communication with the stakeholders is important and leaders need to instigate the communication with the clients.

Therefore, after considering this it can be said that leadership plays a vital role in the development of work practises in an organisation. In the case of hospitals such as RNOH, leadership needs to align with the hospitals demands and ensure that every employee understand the respective roles that can help them to gain success in the hospital. Another important aspect of leadership is that it can help in developing a future leader for the business. This is considered as an important aspect for the success of a hospital as without this particular aspect it can be difficult for any hospital to continue with the development of its vision and mission statement.

As stated by Bolman and Deal (2017) it is important for hospitals to develop a future leader so that the reputation of the hospital can be kept intact. In the case of RNOH, the development of a future can help the hospital identify the activities that need to be taken into consideration so that it can maintain its stature as the number one hospital in UK.

Another important aspect that needs to be considered is the fact that leadership choices affect the working of an organisation. As observed by Antonakis, J. and Day (2017) leadership in hospitals is considered as tough as the customer satisfaction need to be maintained along with good employee performance. For RNOH, the leadership takes a proper balance shape as it helps in identifying the strategy and the systems that are required for success.

According to Govindan, Soleimani and Kannan (2015), the application of the Triple Bottom Line approach in hospitals can be considered as effective since it takes into account the three most important things that help in the approach of hospitals in the society as well as with the customers. These include consideration of approaches related to society, environment and economic. Discussion of the three concepts is provided to understand its applicability at RNOH.

 Economic approach: As stated by Oakland (2014) it is necessary for every organisation to gain profit from its activities. However, in the case of hospitals, particularly RNOH, the focus is divided between gaining profit as well as serving the customers. Most of the times, the aspect of profit is seen as an economic benefit that can help a hospital sector like RNOH to continue with its business activities in an efficient manner.

Environmental approach: This includes safeguarding the planet from any harmful activities. As observed by Hitt, Xu and Carnes (2016) it is necessary for every organisation to maintain a sustainable environment so that the community can be safe. In the case of RNOH, it is necessary to ensure that the disease it treats does not spread after dumping the wasted bed sheets and other equipments. This usually requires understanding the activities that can help in sustainable development and the manner in which RNOH can gain the trust of the people.

Social approach: The people usually provides fair and beneficial business practise. According to Glac (2015), without the support of the customers, it can be difficult for hospitals to grow. RNOH can use its reputation to expand in the UK market by gaining the support of the customers. As seen from earlier analysis, good quality services provided by RNOH allow the hospital to attain its objectives of expansion.

Recommendation

Therefore, after careful analysis of the condition of RNOH it can be said that the hospital needs to ensure that the quality of services provided are well maintained in order to reach its objectives of expansion. RNOH need to ensure that it draws inspiration from the competition it receives so that it can continue to work in a dominating manner in the markets of United Kingdom. Therefore, it can be said that benchmarking can be a form of recommendation for RNOH.

Along with this, it is also necessary that leadership at the hospital improve. The leaders need to understand the style that is appropriate for maintaining a specific motivation factor at the hospital. For RNOH it is important that the leadership activities adopted by the hospital comply with the requirements of the customers, as the customers are the main source of motivation for the hospital.

Conclusion

Therefore, it can be concluded that for RNOH to succeed in the international market, it is important it continue to improve the quality of services that it provides to the people. Operations and logistics are important source of business activities that are needed to be controlled along with emphasis on the Triple Bottom Line approach. For RNOH to succeed, it is essential that a proper leadership style be chosen so that it can continue to develop in the business. One of the important analyses that have been made is the fact that the application of these theories along with the maintenance of operations and logistics can have a positive effect on any organisation.

Reference

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