DEVELOPING A GENERIC SERVICE CAPACITY MODEL FOR HEALTH CARE SERVICES

Abstract

The services sector plays a major role in the economic growth of a country and this sector’s growth is a global trend. The main focus of any service industry is to meet the demands of its customers that require a well-managed capacity. Healthcare services are one of the most demanded services in the world. An efficient and good quality healthcare system results in customer satisfaction by “providing best service in as less time as possible”. Fauji Foundation Hospital (FFH), Rawalpindi is the biggest and the only tertiary care hospital of the Fauji Group of 600 beds. The beneficiaries of Fauji Foundation come to this hospital for major treatments. The female medical ward is taken as a case study for this research as it is the largest ward in terms of capacity at FFH with 132 beds in indoor patient ward and outdoor patient ward which operates 7 days a week. The female medical ward faces high demands in terms of incoming patients. Over the years, the performance of the ward has remained stagnant and has caused lags in the provision of service. This research was carried out to identify the reasons of lags in provision of service and recommending methods to improve the system by developing a capacity management model that gives tangible results to tackle the problem. FFH is the only welfare tertiary care hospital for ex-servicemen making it its greatest strength along with its location, which makes it easily accessible to a huge population. The inconsistency in provision of healthcare, under and over utilization of employees, no tracking system of employees, lack of capacity management techniques, under trained staff and no means to chose between alternatives for better improvisation of operations are the major areas of concern. The research has followed various qualitative and quantitative means to develop a model that highlights the problems and gives tangible results that can improve the over all system. The research found that the capacity at female medical ward can be managed / build on by scheduling the doctor / staff duties, using past data to analyze and recommend minimum number of beds that should be in place to meet demands, proper utilization of space, staff and technology, helping employees understand the strategy and goals of the organization, reducing the frequent management changes, reducing communication gap, establishing patient information desks and choosing between alternatives based on actual research than by intuition can improve provision of healthcare and increase productivity.