Operations Management

Operations Management

The purpose of this paper is to describe the importance of operations management to a health care organization. In addition, the author of this paper will provide a personal definition of what operations management means and why is important to a healthcare organization.

According to the Institute of Operations Management

The cost of providing fast, reliable health care is always an emotive issue, but it has been brought to the fore again via the Gershon report, which is challenging the established Health Care Supply Chain. As a precursor to more specific events that look at how operations management can help practitioners make best use of additional funding to improve patient care and enhance the working lives of Health Care Professionals. The essential healthcare management functions are organized into three major groups of activities governing, caring, and learning with a focus on reaching excellence in community healthcare. Within these activities, each system is described in terms of what it must do to make the whole system effective. Implementing and sustaining change is one of the most difficult tasks for any management -but change is a fact of life in any modern enterprise and, without the ability to manage change, no company can hope to survive it. Operations Managers addresses the practical issues that surround planning and implementing change, including motivating a business to change, engaging staff in the change process, determining performance measures and sustaining the benefits achieved in the initial change process.

According to Stevenson (2002),

operations management is the management of that part of an organization that is responsible for producing goods and/or services.

Operations management is that part of a business organization responsible for planning and coordinating the use of the organization’s resources to convert inputs into outputs. The operations function is one of three primary functions of business organizations; the other two are marketing and finance. The operations function is present in both service-oriented and product-oriented organizations. Operations decisions involve design decisions and operating decisions. Design decisions relate to capacity planning, product design, process design, layout of facilities, and selecting locations for facilities. Operating decisions relate to quality ass...

... middle of paper ...

...tal agencies, lawyers, and many others. Attention to the needs of the customers will always remain the focus of the effective operations manager. (Henderson, 1995)

Finally, effective operations managers must realize that short-term gains at the expense of their partners (e.g., patients, physicians, payers) will almost certainly translate into long-term difficulty. As we move toward a more effective delivery system with less demand for resources, we will see vast shifts in how care is delivered. (Henderson, 1995)

In conclusion, the author of this paper has described the importance of operations management to a health care organization. In addition, the author of this paper has provided a personal definition of what operations management means and why is important to a healthcare organization.

References
Henderson, M. D. (1995) Operations management in health care. Journal of health care finance. New York: Vol.21, Iss. 3; pg. 44, 4 pgs
Stevenson, W. J. (2002). Operations management (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
The Institute of Operations Management. Management in the health care supply chain. Retrieved

September 10, 2005, from http://www.iomnet.org.uk/