Journey of Operational Excellence

Throughout my career, I’ve had the chance to observe multiple healthcare organizations. During that time, I’ve compiled working knowledge of when a Hospital is not functioning as efficiently as possible, usually as a result of mismanagement.

The following are symptoms of this situation:

1.) Excessive wait times

2.) Lack of coordination among different departments/groups

3.) Wasteful and inefficient processes

4.) Unfriendly facilities

5) General lack of care for patient service

6.) Chronic Supply Chain Challenges

7.) Delays in service delivery

8.) Unprofitable operations

9.) Delayed and over-budget projects

10.) Wrong people are given the wrong roles

11.) High attrition rate

12.) A lack or total absence of documentation of processes

Four Key Considerations to Overcome This Challenge:

Operational excellence is a powerful competitive advantage for any industry, including healthcare. This is because it focuses on improving systems and processes. Operational excellence is the execution of a business strategy that is more consistent and reliable than the competition resulting in lower operational risk, lower operating costs, and increased market share, subsequently widening an organization’s economic moat. Operational excellence in healthcare is focused on empowering staff to deliver safe and reliable care, improving processes, using resources more efficiently, eliminating mistakes and unnecessary procedures, and improving health outcomes.

To achieve operational excellence, I directed my Quality Management team to empower my organization to:

• Identify improvement opportunities

• Design efficient processes

• Implement viable solutions

All of the above is then augmented with training in process improvement at Lean Six Sigma, green belt level.

In an operationally excellent organization, everyone knows their respective contribution to the flow of value to the customer. They can identify when this flow is efficient or inefficient, and know how to restore any inefficiency without the assistance of management. The objective must be to build around what the customer and other stakeholders want and then deliver it at the least cost, thereby offering the most significant value.

Every employee is proactively responsible for their tasks. Thus leaders of operationally excellent companies can shift their focus from managing day-to-day activities and focus on continuous innovation and other broad-spectrum projects to increase recurring revenue. Operational excellence allows management to plan, innovate, and focus on business growth instead of spending time putting out business fires. To achieve business growth and continue to innovate while continuously improving, an organization must reach a state of Operational Excellence.

Science has to be at the core of the involvement in managing hospital operations. Much of this management philosophy is based on earlier continuous improvement methodologies, such as the Lean Six Sigma methodology.

Operational excellence is an element of organizational leadership that stresses the application of numerous methodologies and tools, with a focus on the sustainable improvement of outstanding performance metrics. The creation of new revenue streams isn’t enough to improve the bottom line. Inefficiencies in terms of processes, manpower, and other resources such as facility, equipment, and supplies must be addressed to achieve organizational targets.

Science must be in the form of tools and models to ensure the optimum delivery of what the customer and other stakeholders want. However, the focus of Operational Excellence goes beyond the traditional continuous improvement methods to a long-term change in organizational culture. Organizations in pursuit of operational excellence do two things significantly different than other companies:

- Manage their business and operational processes strategically,

- and invest in developing the right culture. Doing so is a surer route to organizational success.

Making the change may often be a drastic move for most organizations, but the pain of change usually follows the rewards through perseverance and due diligence. As a famous Management Guru once said: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Adding my own two cents, culture also eats innovation for lunch and transformation for dinner.