List at least three best practices for successful operations managers?

Operations managers are in charge of the process that transforms inputs into outputs, their general function involves leading, planning, controlling and organizing. According to Langabeer & Helton, the primary role of operations managers includes but is not limited to reducing cost, reducing of variability and improvement of logistics flow, improvement of productivity, provision of higher quality services and improvement of business processes.

Trends in healthcare operations management are current and upcoming practices by managers and relevant stakeholders in the industry. The increasing demand for higher quality of care at a lower cost whilst achieving year on year increased sustainability and/or profits is the driving force behind today’s healthcare operations manager.    

According to Langabeer and Helton, there are eight broad practices:

1. “Remain strategically focused on agility speed and transparency
2.  Embrace and Integrate Technology into Operations,
3. Integrate Service Delivery with Activity-Based Costing and Lean
4. Work Toward Greater Collaboration
5. Continue Learning and Improving
6. Conduct Operations Analysis and Demonstrate Financial Value
7. Manage the Enterprise through Consolidation and Horizontal Management Processes
8. Deploy Big Data and Analytical Techniques" (2016).

As an operations manager in today’s healthcare scene, the value of integrating technology into various and daily aspects of operations cannot be overemphasized. As the rest of healthcare and medicine very slowly move from intermittent and reactive care to proactive so should healthcare operations. So being a manager, I believe automation is the future, while manual processes and independent systems within one’s organization is the past, hence according to Kraft, taking advantage of exponential technology to further drive performance is the way to go to remain competitive.

"Interoperability," the broad integration of many enterprises, independent key systems, and tech to allow for sharing and linking of data, so that applications can work as one large system in an organization. This ensures "key systems such as electronic medical records, a picture archiving and communication system, medication administration, enterprise resource planning, Charge Description Master, and many more to work together seamlessly." (Langabeer & Helton) Also these outside the organization, between different organizations that is, encourages connections between different hospital systems.  There are apps now that send alerts to nurses’ phones informing them of vacant beds, time for a patient’s round, health changes on the monitors, even patients calling for help. All these aid in provision of higher quality of care and patients’ satisfaction scores which are important in today’s healthcare environment as this impacts the facility’s reimbursements which is the organization’s bottom line. (“Improve HCAHPS”, 2018)

Despite the increasing capacity of healthcare organizations, to treat patients with more treatment rooms and procedures etcetera (Langabeer & Helton), exponential tech like phones, special devices and wearable devices is making it possible to take care home to the patient (Kraft, 2011). Today’s post modern managers have to be open to and practice continuous learning to remain top of the game and ensure their organization can provide the best possible care through best practice at all times.

To achieve the best practice as a manager, one must have analytical skills, process orientation, computer skills, leadership abilities, and strategic thinking skills, hence no matter the practice/trend one opts for in one’s organization these skills are needed.

References

“Improve HCAHPS: Increase Nurse Rounding for Patient Satisfaction” (2018). Retrieved from http://www.versustech.com/rtls-benefits/hcahps-rounding/

Kraft, D. (2011). Medicine’s Future? There is an app for that. TEDx Retrieved fromhttps://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kraft_medicine_s_future/up-next#t-580970

Langabeer, J.R. II. & Helton, J. (2016).  HealthCare Operations Management: A Systems Perspective. 2. Jones & Bartlett Learning Pp 411-419

Kraft, D., (2016). The Future of Health and Medicine: Where Can Technology Take Us. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w85gr9FHwBI