Healthcare and the Hospital Industry

The healthcare infrastructure and services of a state is comparable to the immune system of the human body. A strong immune system helps individuals recuperate quickly and get back to work. In the same sense, if a healthcare system is weak, it takes longer for individuals to resume work and return to their normal lives. In the larger picture, weak healthcare systems can significantly slow the overall progress of societies and nations. The pandemic of 2020 is a glaring example of this. Countries with frail healthcare systems took longer to get their economies back on track.

From governance to execution, building and maintaining a strong healthcare system has a long list of requirements. Some of these primary requirements are government strategies and policies (legislature), the role of the executive, medical colleges, R&D capabilities, availability of skilled medical professionals, production and supply of medicines, accessibility, financing and insurance, and places where medical care is provided i.e. hospitals and clinics.

Hospitals play an important role in healthcare systems because they are the largest delivery channel of medical care. So, whether it is the private or public sector, it is important to manage hospitals with the best standards and practices of planning and operations.

Challenges – from Management Standpoint

Manpower Challenges

Hospitals are heavily reliant on the quality of their workforce. Finding talent followed up by retention is the foremost challenge. For starters, specialist doctors and specialists with good reputations are rare to find these days. The few such available doctors are always in high demand and they tend to charge very high. People often complain about the limited time given for consultation by such reputed specialists. This hurts the goodwill of hospitals.

The quality of services provided by nursing and other support teams also affects the patient experience. There could be many reasons why the services of nurses and support teams can be below par. The quality of education and training comes first. Secondly, staff shortage puts additional work pressure on the existing workforce. Thirdly, nursing and care can be a monotonous job and it is natural to lose the human touch from it.

Operational Challenges

Hospitals are massive and complex organisations. There is a large workforce to be managed and monitored. There must be no lapses in the availability of medical and support staff at any given time of the day. Leaves have to be carefully sanctioned. The resignation of doctors or any senior medical staff must be reciprocated promptly with replacements.

Hospitals are also reliant on an army of machines and equipment. Quality control of these assets is an essential and perpetual activity. If there is any breakdown or need for replacement or repair, there has to be a swift mechanism to get such assets back into action.

Like manpower and machines, inventory management also has a direct bearing on the quality of services delivered by hospitals. No medicine or medical supply must go out of stock at any given time. Stock monitoring must always be real-time accompanied by robust reordering systems.

Commercial Challenges

Experts from reputed hospital consulting companies often emphasise that one of the notable commercial challenges in hospital management is offering medical care at affordable rates in the backdrop of rising costs. The reasons for rising costs in the healthcare industry are attributed to increased demand for healthcare services and medicines and medical supplies, increases in supply-side costs, and general economic inflation. Although costs have risen for all, it is the ones with better overall management that win over markets and margins.

Marketing Challenges

In an era of scepticism towards hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, building trust and credibility is a major marketing challenge for hospitals and other healthcare organisations. Veteran hospital consultants (business and management) would agree that no matter what noble words are uttered in advertising campaigns and banners, winning even the entry-level trust and confidence of the public is now a major hurdle. Being in the field of healthcare and hospital consultancy (business) for more than 10 years, YRC maintains that the primary solution for the above problem is not advertising but being authentic about value propositions and maintaining a credible level of transparency in services and pricing.

IT Challenges

Experts from the field of hospital and healthcare consulting would also agree that one of the leading technology-related challenges in contemporary hospital management is cybersecurity concerns. Hospitals often collect, process, and store the personal data of patients including medical records, financial information (cards, insurance), identification credentials, etc. Such information repositories are gold to cybercriminals. Stolen information is often sold which then are used for nefarious purposes like forging identities, deceiving insurance companies with false claims, etc. Hospitals that are not equipped with the right cybersecurity systems are more vulnerable to such cyber attacks.

Interoperability is another big issue with hospitals. It happens when the IT solutions used in a hospital are not able to properly integrate its processes cutting across departments for information sharing and execution of processes.

Future Trends

Advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) will play a greater role in shaping the management of the core (medical) and support (non-medical) functions in hospitals. For example, software solutions powered by AI and ML would be able to provide insightful assistance in diagnostics, make informed analyses and predictions, and fully automate many back-end operations.

Telemedicine is not something new but with improved communication systems like satellite internet services and AR/VR, the demand for telemedicine or remote medical attention is likely to go up. Modern-day hospitals will be equipped with such facilities.

Developments in genetics science powered by advanced technologies like AI and powerful analytic tools are already staging the road for precision medicine. This will enable hospitals to personalise medical care depending on the unique genetics and health profile of individual patients.

Modern-day healthcare organisations are increasingly adopting a patient-centric approach. The emphasis is falling on reduced readmission rates and prioritising preventive medical care. The coming years may see hospitals coming up with more wellness programs, promoting work-life balance, and providing encouragement for healthy lifestyle habits.

As mentioned earlier in challenges, hospitals will have to come up with strong cybersecurity systems. To deal with this challenge, there is always the option of taking guidance from experienced hospital consulting firms.

In healthcare and hospital consultancy, YRC takes into account the implications of technology and its impact on business and management.

Why YRC –
Hospital Consultancy Services | Health Care Consultancy Services

YRC is a retail & eCommerce consulting brand with more than a decade’s presence in the business and a scaling international presence. The team has worked with 500+ clients in 25+ verticals with a success ratio of 95%. In hospital management consulting, YRC offers services and solutions for enterprise set-up, redesigning management, operations planning, and executing expansion projects.

Business Model Development

Business model development for hospitals is different from any regular run-of-the-mill prototypes. To begin with, hospitals are sensitive institutions because of the nature of their services. Then there are regulatory standards governing the services of healthcare institutions deviation from which could bring serious adverse repercussions also on the enterprise behind them. The next factor is specialised awareness and comprehension of public health. Here, we are talking about the average and prevailing health conditions of the public in a city or state in general. This is equivalent to consumer behaviour. Coming to public health, there are some common characteristics often relatable with demographic factors. For example, if you are in a city where elderly people represent a majority of the population, the quantum of medical care and attention tends to tilt more towards those related to geriatrics. The present state of the healthcare systems, including technology applications, is another big consideration. Healthcare systems and services are also affected by the awareness levels of the public in general. Before going on to the business aspects of business modelling, it is imperative to first understand the state of public health in a given geography, common tendencies to stay healthy, and prevailing healthcare standards and solutions. As experienced healthcare and hospital consultants (business and management), YRC keeps the above-cited factors under consideration in helping clients come up with robust and relevant value propositions and developing strong and sustainable business models.

Global Talent Acquisition & Onboarding Services

When it comes to healthcare, boundaries should never be a barrier in making a medical care provider meet a medical care seeker. YRC’s global talent hunt and onboarding services work with the same motto. We, at YRC, reckon that global talent recruitment is a tough task. For starters, there are differences in the acknowledgement of specialized degrees between countries. Then there are cultural differences leaving their imprints on teamwork and internal communications. Thirdly, perceptions of their careers can be quite different between people from different parts of the world. In the same way, education and training can also vary. Last but not least, different countries have different regulatory norms concerning employment from both directions. Salary discrepancies further add to the woes. All these factors affect how potential candidates are identified, approached, interviewed, evaluated, and hired.

As a globally emerging brand of hospital and healthcare consulting services, YRC’s talent acquisition team is aware of the detailing that comes with global hiring and onboarding. In hospital and healthcare consulting services concerning talent acquisition and onboarding, we formulate the hiring strategies, map the operational details, and carry out the acquisition drives with due adherence to the fundamental standards of recruitment and selection and the laws of the land.

Preparation for NABH & JCI Accreditation

Obtaining NABH and JCI accreditation has numerous benefits for all stakeholders involved in healthcare institutions. Obtaining accreditations requires healthcare institutions to establish and maintain stringent quality standards and protocols concerning medical care and associated services, maintenance of equipment, inventory storage and handling, process transparency, documentation, etc.

Oftentimes, keeping track of the extensive range of requirements comes out as challenging for new healthcare institutions. Moreover, meeting these requirements is not a one-time exercise; the established standards and protocols must be consistently followed.

As a part of its hospital and health care consultancy services, YRC offers expert assistance in NABH & JCI Accreditation Preparation where the process consultants of YRC develop the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) aligned with NABH & JCI guidelines towards ensuring that hospitals can execute the necessary procedures for obtaining the accreditation(s) in an organised and time-bound banner. We work closely with our clients in SOP design and delivery.

Layout Design & Equipment Planning

The quality of layout design and equipment planning has several important implications for hospitals. To begin with, it affects patient experience concerning medical care and attention, waiting times, the physical environment, and privacy to name a few. In operations, a well-conceived layout design and equipment planning helps in streamlining workflows, optimising space utilisation, ensuring smooth navigation of people, equipment, and inventory, incorporating the standards of workplace ergonomics, reducing the scope of errors and mistakes, etc. Accreditation bodies may also dictate many spatial requirement standards.

Hospitals are complex physical setups featuring extensiveness in terms of the number of departments, floors, assets and equipment, diagnoses and treatment centres, offices, waiting rooms, consulting rooms, bigger workforces, 24×7 shifts, emergency services, pharmacies, housekeeping, logistics, cabin categories, etc. It can be overwhelming for new or upcoming hospitals to smoothly execute their layout design & equipment planning exercise.

YRC provides layout design & equipment planning services for new hospital setups. Working closely with clients and based on the hospital’s services, operations, and specialisations, the team maps the equipment requirements. In hospital and health care consultancy services, YRC also maintains that equipment planning has many important implications for the layout design of hospitals. The quality of layout design and equipment planning plays a crucial role in helping hospitals obtain the desired accreditations.

SOPs / Process Consulting

Hospitals are massive and complex organisations. Without process orientation, a hospital may not be able to render its services properly while keeping its back-end operations intact. For instance, clarity in operational definitions helps in better comprehension of roles, responsibilities, and flow of work. This facilitates teamwork and reduces the scope of doubt and ambiguities in everyone’s sphere of work. When it comes to inventory management in hospitals, having well-defined processes helps ensure that medical supplies are always available. Or where coordination between medical and administrative functions is concerned, a robust process framework helps build the right operational integration.

SOPs are one of the most powerful tools that help organisations become process-oriented. SOP development and implementation assistance is a core component of YRC’s process consulting services. Planned and proven methodologies are followed in the design and delivery of hospital SOP solutions tailored to meet the unique operational requirements of clients. Two important SOP application examples in hospitals are

• Admission procedure in hospitals (admission process hospital)
• Discharge procedure in hospitals

Process Compliance Audits

Process compliance auditing is necessary to assess the extent of an organisation’s actual practices with its internal policies and external standards and regulations. Some of the specific reasons to carry out process compliance audits in hospitals are:

• Ensuring that the conditions required for the safety of patients are always maintained
• Meeting compliance requirements
• Eliminating wastes and redundancies
• Making processes more efficient and effective
• Improving the experience of patients
• Lime lighting the areas for training and education

Here, YRC helps hospitals and healthcare organisations build the roadmap of planning and executing process compliance audits covering:

• Defining the scope of audits
• Forming the audit teams
• Identifying documents, manuals, etc. to be evaluated
• Identifying the roles and positions to be observed and interviewed
• Creating checklists, survey questions, determining the methods of observation
• Procedure of document review and analysis, interview plan, observation schedule
• Report preparation and presentation of findings, analysis, recommendations, CTAs

Training Content Development – Compliance & SOPs

Poor content can make an education go wrong. The same fundamental applies to staff training and development endeavours as well. Training content should not be vague and cover irrelevant topics. It should strictly focus on the actual requirements of jobs, roles, or positions. In the case of hospitals, the significance of employee training is on another level. What is at stake here is not the run-of-the-mill customer experience but the medical care and attention to patients and adherence to regulatory compliance and internal policies and operational requirements. YRC’s team of healthcare and hospital consultants (business and management) understands the nature of the seriousness involved in designing training programs for hospitals and other healthcare organisations. Here is a snapshot of what revolves around developing training content at YRC:

• Establishing the training objectives (compliance, SOPs, patient experience, technical knowledge, communication) in SMART format
• Identifying the target audience, assessment of their present knowledge and aptitude
• Collection of expert content on individual subjects
• Content development to meet training objectives and trainee requirements, use of principles of Instructional Design and other contemporary training standards
• Delivery of training (video, simulation, booklets, online and offline instructor-led, OJT, vestibule, etc.)
• Modify content to improve engagement, adding activities and assignments
• Pilot run, improvise
• Conduct of training, sharing of assessments

ECommerce/Online Healthcare Services Setup Consulting

Also referred to as telemedicine, there has been a significant rise in the demand for eCommerce or online healthcare services in the last couple of years. It allows medical care seekers to remotely connect with hospitals and eliminates needless travelling and waiting time. On the other hand, hospitals also get access to a larger base of medical care seekers. There are many other two-way benefits.

In eCommerce or online healthcare services setup consulting, YRC provides a full range of enterprise solutions for setting up and expansion of online healthcare service centres. This includes market research, hospital business model development, financial and commercial evaluations, functional strategies, operations planning, incorporating hospital IT solutions (hospital automation software and hospital analytics solutions etc.), hospital franchising, and audit and control.

BI Dashboards Development

Business Intelligence dashboards (BI dashboards) are digital platforms that display quick synopses of KPIs and other identified data points. BI dashboards can be understood as digital display boards, often within software applications, that help users keep an eye on vital performance parameters.

BI dashboards are extremely useful in hospital management. YRC helps identify and customise BI dashboards for administrative and operational functions (non-medical) in hospitals. The service objective is to help hospitals manage their resources more efficiently and make timely and informed decisions in routine functioning as well as for planning and strategy. For example, demographic aspects may be analysed for better marketing and service outreach.

New Hospital Setup Consulting

In new hospital setup consulting, YRC’s services are similar to eCommerce/online healthcare services setup consulting highlighted earlier. The services include market research, business model development, financial and commercial evaluations, functional strategies, hospital operations planning (hospital standard operating procedures), incorporating hospital IT solutions (hospital automation software and hospital data analytics solutions etc.), franchising, and hospital audit.

To know more about YRC’s hospital consulting services, hospital set-up, management, and expansion or to speak to one of YRC’s hospital consulting experts, please visit the company’s website: https://www.yourretailcoach.in/contact/

Disclaimer: The content provided on this page/blog is intended to offer general information and insights into healthcare business management ONLY. It should not be construed as influencing and/or substituting any professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and/or any established medical standard, process, or practice in any manner whatsoever.