Options
Process management in hospitals: an empirically grounded maturity model
Journal
Business Research
ISSN
1866-8658
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2014-10-01
Research Team
IWI1
Abstract
In order to improve transparency and stabilise health care costs, several countries have decided to reform their healthcare system on the basis of diagnosis related groups (DRG). DRG systems induce active competition among hospitals, forcing them to become more efficient and effective. In consequence, hospitals are investing considerably in process orientation and management. However, to date there is neither a consensus on what capabilities hospitals need to acquire for becoming process-oriented, nor a general agreement on the sequence of development stages they have to traverse. To this end, this study proposes a theoretically grounded conceptualisation of process management capabilities and presents a staged maturity model algorithmically derived on the basis of empirical data from 129 acute somatic hospitals in Switzerland. The five maturity levels start with ‘encouragement of process orientation' (level 1), ‘case-by-case handling' (level 2), and ‘defined processes' (level 3). Ultimately, hospitals can reach the levels ‘occasional corrective action' (level 4) and ‘closed loop improvement' (level 5). The empirically derived model reveals why available maturity models for process management are not applicable in the hospitals context: Their comparatively high complexity on the one hand and their strong focus on topics like an adequate IT integration and process automation on the other make them inadequate for solving the problems felt in the hospital sector, which are primarily cultural and structural.
Language
English
HSG Classification
not classified
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Springer
Publisher place
Heidelberg
Volume
7
Number
2
Start page
191
End page
216
Pages
26
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
233581