Operations Improvement

Hospitals today face challenges in every area – reimbursement continues to be squeezed, patient volumes are increasing, and expectations for service and quality have never been higher. Moreover, new competitors frequently offer physicians and patients higher levels of service and convenience. To meet these challenges and build a foundation for strategic growth, it is imperative for hospitals to manage operations as efficiently and effectively as possible.

However, improving operational efficiencies and outcomes is a significant challenge for most organizations. Whether the issue involves overflowing emergency departments, reducing staff overtime, or poor OR utilization, hospitals must address a myriad of operational problems to ensure long-term financial viability.

ECG works with hospitals to identify and implement the best opportunities for operational improvements. Through our comprehensive diagnostic assessment, we can help to identify opportunities at both the organization-wide and department level. Our assessment considers hospitals’ use of all resources – staff, supplies, purchased services, and capital. In addition, we have unmatched expertise in evaluating and revising clinical and ancillary systems and work flows to ensure hospitals achieve industry-leading operating efficiencies. Our operational improvement expertise is broad-based and includes the following:

• Organization-wide operations improvement.

» Performance benchmarking.

» Patient scheduling, work flow, and capacity management optimization.

» Outsourcing opportunity assessments.

» Nursing productivity analysis and improvement.

• Department-specific operations improvement.

» Physician practice operations reviews.

» Perioperative service assessments and planning.

» Imaging services assessments and planning.

» Cardiac catheterization lab operations improvement.

» Emergency department capacity and throughput improvements.

Typically, our operations improvement assessment involves three phases, as shown below.

In addition, ECG brings a unique physician focus to operations improvement projects, one that allows us to not only identify areas for improvement and help implement those changes, but also assist each hospital in involving its physicians in the process.

The following are examples of our work and the clients’ results: