Supply Chain Management in Hospital: A Case Study
Samuel Toba • Mary Tomasini • Y. Helio Yang
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
It is a common misunderstanding that hospital purchasing is just a functional part of operations rather than a strategic means to achieve financial cost savings. The supply chain process is the essential link for all programs and services offered by a hospital, and hence any improvement in managing the supply chain can positively impact bottom line profitability of any hospital’s operations. This paper provides an overview of the current issues in supply chain management that today’s hospitals face as well as a look at the measures that a case health organization has taken in managing this aspect of
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Located in nine states, KP currently is the largest not-for-profit medical care organization in the United States with approximately 8.7 million health plan members, 150,000 employees, 13,729 physicians, 32 medical centers, 416 medical offices, and $28 billion in annual operating revenue. Kaiser Permanente is unique among health care providers and hospitals because it serves both as a health maintenance organization and as a group physicians practice provider. Its revenue model is not based by the number of cases or patients served each day, but rather by the number of members enrolled in their health care system. Hence, Kaiser Permanente tracks costs at the gross level view of average cost per nursing unit per patient day.
IV. PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
Healthcare industry is a cottage industry where clinicians are independent contractors with considerable clout and specific preferences for supplies and some variations in supplies and processes are accommodated to ensure patient safety (Scalise, 2005). These Physician Preference Items (PPIs) account for 40% of total medical supply spending for an average hospital (Volpe, 2007). However, hospitals are beginning to recognize the financial burden of allowing physicians the autonomy to order whatever supplies they choose. One of the opportunities for supply chain savings as identified from the 2005 survey by the Healthcare Financial Management Association is in the area of physician buy-in especially with
Today, health care is one of the most the important subjects in United States. There are many Private and nonprofitmaking organization dedicated to health care. This paper discusses the readiness of Kaiser Permanente as a health care organization to respond the future health care needs of citizens. This paper also contains its strategic plan that addresses issues relating to network growth, nurse staffing, resource management and patient satisfaction.
The cost of Medical equipment plays a significant role in the delivery of health care. The clinical engineering at Victoria Hospital is an important branch of the hospital team management that are working to strategies ways to improve quality of service and lower cost repairs of equipments. The team members from Biomedical and maintenance engineering’s roles are to ensure utilization of quality equipments such as endoscope and minimize length of repair time. All these issues are a major influence in the hospital’s project cost. For example, Victory hospital, which is located in Canada, is in the process of evaluating different options to decrease cost of its endoscope repair. This equipment is use in the endoscopy department for
As a managed care organization Kaiser Permanente has served as a model for informational healthcare systems and the recent demand for affordable care has prompted the organization to lower cost in services without hindering the quality of care. Kaiser Permanente has integrated a system in which the organization assumes all financial risk and a bundled enrollment fee for service strategy. What makes Kaiser Permanente unique from other HMOs is their accountability for quality, utilization management, financial risk, and business strategies (Kaiser Permanente, 2009).
Kaiser Permanente is a large nonprofit integrated healthcare plan. This organization serves a tremendous amount of patients all over the United States with more than 38 hospitals and more than 600 medical offices. They offer medical care from chronic care visits to deliveries and prescription refills ("Who We Are - Kaiser Permanente," n.d.) Kaiser Permanente conducts campaigns to spread their care knowledge to others. They perform sick care, prevention care, and treatment for those who need it.
Kaiser Permanente is a managed care facility that provides services across the health care continuum. Over the years the organization has continually made efforts toward improvements since it was first founded in 1945. These improvements generate a series of successes that set Kaiser apart from similar organizations. But, just as any health care delivery system, Kaiser has faced challenges in the past, present and may continue to do so in the future. In this paper I will explain what attributes to the success of Kaiser Permanente and some of the challenges they face.
Back in December of 2015, Kaiser Permanente planned to acquire Group Health Cooperative for 1.8 billion dollars with a proposition to invest $1 billion in new equipment, staff, facilities and research in hope to improve health in Washington state. In the Advisory Board’s article Eyeing growth, Kaiser announces first major acquisition in over a decade it says, “these deals are focused on delivering a better product to
Reorders are placed at the time of review (T), and the safety stock that must be reordered is:
Kaiser Permanente is a large health care delivery system that serves over eight million individuals across nine states, and the District of Columbia. In 1990 Kaiser Permanente developed a internet patient portal, KP Online. KP Online enabled members to make appointments, request prescription refills, seek clinical advice, obtain health care information, and interact with patients in forums.
Established in the 1930s by Henry J. Kaiser and Dr. Sidney as a health care program for construction, shipyard, and steel mill employees, in 1945 Kaiser Permanente (KP) opened enrollment to the public (Our History, 2016). Despite many challenges and setbacks, KP has grown to become one of the largest leading healthcare providers (SPEC Associates, 2011; "Labor Management," n.d.). However, is KP ready to meet the health care needs of citizens in the next decade? This paper will delve into KP to assess their readiness as well as their strategic plans regarding network growth, adequately staffing nurses, managing resources, and maintaining patient satisfaction.
Kaiser Permanente (KP) was founded in California in 1945. It is one of the largest non-profit healthcare organizations in the United States, made up of three entities: the Kaiser Foundation Hospital, the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and the Permanente Medical Groups. It currently serves about 9.1 members within the following states: California, Colorado, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Georgia. With a few exceptions, it mostly operates under a managed care model, owning the physician network and the facilities its members use to receive medical services (Fast Facts, 2013).
Kaiser Permanente offers a holistic health care system by combining a nonprofit insurance plan with its own hospitals and clinics. Additionally, since the plan pays a fixed amount for medical care per member, there is a considerable financial incentive to keep people healthy and out of the hospital. Kaiser oversees, administers and provides a comprehensive care for patients, ranging from providing screening and diagnosis to filling a prescription to running a hospital where the patients undergo surgery. This strategy of integration is at least 10 percent less expensive than other providers’ services (Abelson, 2013).
Hospitals and health systems in the U.S. are experiencing a remarkable transformation in their business models directed from numerous influences that are projected to ultimately turn the industry around. Pressures include providers troubled with the quantity of services they are responsible for, to providers who concentrate on presenting high-cost services that give emphasis to sustaining healthy populations (Dunn & Becker, 2013).
The problem at Memorial Hospital is the focus on costs instead of health care. When a health care provider does not take the primary business as the core value of the operation and make strategic and tactical decisions based primary on costs, it decreases the consumers’ (patients) satisfaction in long run. As consumers reduce or stop purchasing goods and services from the hospital, hospital may make more cost oriented decisions and falls into a negative cycle. Eventually the hospital may face the fate of loosing business to competitors and the possibility of closing the door.
3. Cut Zone Barbershops for Men (9 branches) is the first chain of beauty, day spa, and wellness in Saudi Arabia.
4. In a service supply chain, the (explicit) cost of information is higher than in a product