Even as the healthcare system is all about improving patients’ lives, the business side of this industry is equally important as building sustainable hospitals and practices. Dr M Mariappan, Chairperson, Centre for Hospital Management, TISS speaks about new age hospital management and its need within the Indian healthcare industry to Raelene Kambli
How has hospital administration evolved over the years? Which are the changes that have improved healthcare delivery?
When we think of a hospital or a clinic, we tend to think of physicians, nurses and other caregivers. Hospitals were usually managed by physicians. It was expected that physicians are able to manage the hospital because they have clinical training. However, over the years, hospitals have changed and become a complex unit. Therefore, trained professional managers started to take care of the administration.
Healthcare services particularly hospitals, have transformed into quality care centres and a huge contributor to economic development especially the corporate hospitals. Hospitals are professionally-oriented institutions which accommodate huge investment systems, process and skilled as well as unskilled workforce. Therefore, there is a need for trained professionals to manage hospitals. It is also noticed that corporate hospitals or large private hospitals have more professional management system than government hospitals or smaller hospitals.
Further, the recent development like public awareness about healthcare, advanced medical technology, information, innovation driven by competition, increasing costs, quality initiatives have led to demand for professional hospital management and overall positive reinforcement in healthcare delivery.
In an highly competitive environment, which are the management strategies required today to make a hospital business profitable without compromising on quality?
Hospitals are multifaceted systems, where there are hundreds of operations going on at one time.
The business side of the healthcare is vital to the lifeline of the system, especially in hospitals. Hospital managers need to have top-notch business sense to run the hospital efficiently, and they focus much of their time and attention on issues such as budgeting, hospital public relations and marketing, and billing and collections from insurance companies or other payers affiliated with their network.
However, the concerns of hospital managers go beyond business and directly into the delivery of care. Managers must maintain their ethical responsibilities while ensuring that all operations throughout the hospital are running smoothly, from surgery schedules, patient flow, record updates and confidentiality, waste management and equipment maintenance and set up, to name a few.
Hospitals are learning organisation, they continue to be innovating and adopting changes in care delivery process. This approach provides them competitive advantage. In this manner every hospital tries to match the requirement of patients, also try to do better than the other hospitals. They also try to use either cost leadership or product differentiation or both to win the competition. However, finally, the hospital continues to win the hearts and minds of patients and make profit without compromising the quality.
Does running a hospital today needs a professional management degree or experience? Elaborate on it.
Hospitals are not only a place to care for the patients but also creating an economy, providing employment, ensuring health and productivity of individuals and also meeting a lot of challenges from the healthcare market. Managing modern hospitals is much more complex than in the past. Therefore, professional training is must to manage resources such as human, finance, material etc. Training should be taken from right source to achieve best outcome and output.
What should be the approach – customer first or business first?
Modern health organisation value patients much more than in the past. Moreover, patients are also learning very fast to demand their service requirements. The healthcare business demand certain specific requirements. It is very important for the organisation to hear the voice of customer along with the voice of business. It is necessary to treat both the aspects like two eyes of human so that a clear vision can be achieved.
What is your mantra for success?
People use to say that ‘try and try and succeed’ but one has to ‘simply succeed.’ Success comes with collaborative effort and positive attitude. It is important to face the challenges and take risk while doing the task. The organisation must learn to live with environment and be able to bring the environment under control to ensure success remains with them.
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