Resources capacity (capacity planning)
SEHA applies strategies for improving its performance and service delivery in order to meet the demands of healthcare services and products. Capacity planning is evidently one of the strategies employed in analyzing the current level of service delivery and planning. In design capacity, the level of work that the company can complete in a specified amount of time is considered (Geunes & Pardalos 2011).
At SEHA, the provision of healthcare services is the main management activity or process that the organization must fulfill. It seeks to deliver these services in order to meet the healthcare demands through all the facilities under its management. Inefficiencies are likely to increase in case SEHA’s capacity. The healthcare demands in the country have a significant discrepancy. Therefore, SEHA ensures that it reaches the optimum level of production capacity by maintaining the appropriate number of employees, utilization, healthcare facilities, and equipment and efficiency (Geunes & Pardalos 2011).
To achieve this, SEHA focuses on some strategies incapacity planning. The organization’s strategies can be analyzed in terms of lag, lead, and adjustment and matching categories.
An important aspect of SEHA is the focus on increasing its production capacity by increasing the hospitals’ ability to handle and meet the increasing healthcare demands (SEHA 2008). The organization has been increasing the number of healthcare facilities under its management, including hospitals, healthcare centers, clinics, healthcare equipment in hospitals, ambulatory facilities, and the number of employees (SEHA 2010).
The aim is to ensure that an increase in the demand for healthcare services will not result in a discrepancy when it rises beyond the organization’s ability to provide the services. Therefore, it is clear that SEHA has adopted a lead strategy because it has been increasing its production capacity based on predictions that the healthcare demands continuously increase with time.
Outsourcing and shift systems in SEHA’s capacity management
SEHA has a focus on the “Emiratization” of employees in order to comply with the government regulations of increasing the number of locals in the senior and junior levels (SEHA 2010). To achieve this, it has established a program of ensuring that local employees are trained and included in the company’s organization and production levels (NOW 2010).
Since foreign employees provide quality services at all the levels of healthcare delivery in UAE, SEHA has a strategy of using a shifting method in which local employees work for some predetermined number of hours in a day. The remaining time is assigned to other local or international employees. In this way, the organization is able to satisfy the healthcare demands and government regulations.
In addition, SEHA uses outsourcing of services by including foreign employees, healthcare equipment, international level healthcare guidelines, and procedures in service delivery. It is worth noting that the company has a working relationship with foreign and international providers. For example, John Hopkins Medicine and Cleveland Clinic (USA), Vamed (Canada), the Medical University of Vienna (Austria), and the Bumrungrad International (Germany) are some of the foreign institutions working with SEHA.
These institutions manage, support, or provide support and equipment or guidelines in order to improve the quality, capacity, and efficiency of healthcare services in the facilities under the care of SEHA. For example, the Tawam Hospital, which is managed by SEHA, has been affiliated with the John Hopkins Medicine; the Sheikh Khalifa Medical City is affiliated with Cleveland Clinic while Vamed and the Vienna Medical University manage Al Alain Hospital.
Forecasting method
In general, capacity planning involves three major steps- determination of the service level requirements, analysis of the current capacity, and future planning (Geunes & Pardalos 2011). Future planning is an integral part of the entire procedure and involves using forecasting methods to develop meaningful plans and reduce the future cases of uncertainties (Geunes & Pardalos 2011).
SEHA uses judgmental forecasts because it applies information and inputs from various sources, including its partners, hospitals, and healthcare facilities under its management. In addition, it uses time-series project patterns because the identification of the time-series at a given time is important in determining the future demands of healthcare services in the country, including a forecast on the demographic and economic trends.
Processes
SEHA uses the capital intensity process to produce the products in healthcare service delivery through a combination of labor, equipment, and materials. The objective is to improve the quality and amount of healthcare services in order to ensure that the population is provided with a high level and universal healthcare.
Process measurement
At SEHA, efficiency, quality, safety, productivity, and effectiveness of the type of healthcare services delivered to the citizens through all the involved programs are used to measure the performance of the entire system. Effectiveness determines whether the organization’s activities are based on the right things that should be done. Quality involves the measurement of the degree to which the healthcare service meets the healthcare demands in the society.
What measures did the UPS adopt to increase competitiveness?
After recognizing the threats that the USPS was facing, the management at the organization used a number of strategies to regain competitiveness. First, it involved a reorganization of the corporate structure in order to reduce bureaucracy and overhead positions. Some 30,000 management layers were reduced by eliminating 73 field divisions and 5 regions. They were replaced with 10 areas each under two managers- a processing and distribution manager and a customer service manager (Stevenson 2011). The reorganization was also made in a manner that it attracted more business, cut costs, and reduce deficits.
Secondly, the company focused on customer satisfaction and engagement. This includes involving customer-oriented services and engaging the community volunteers to work closely with the company in order to identify issues that are of interest to society (Stevenson, 2011).
What results were achieved by the USPS’s changes?
The company reorganization strategy successfully eliminated some bulk and redundant programs, costs, and projected deficits for the company. In addition, reorganization attracted new forms of business with an aim of moving from the traditional business system that was facing massive competition (Stevenson 2011).
Secondly, the focus on customer satisfaction and customer relations increased the level of customer satisfaction and the ability to respond to the issues and problems raised by the customers (Stevenson 2011). In addition, it increased the company’s awareness of the interests of the customers and society in general.
How does the use of standard shipping containers and flat-rate mailers help competitiveness?
These strategies increased efficiency and flexibility of operations, which in turn attracted customers to the mailing services. In addition, it reduced costs and delays in mail delivery, which was also an important method of satisfying customers.
References
SEHA 2010, Annual Report 2010 – Five-Year Strategic Plan, SEHA, Abu Dhabi.
Geunes, J & Pardalos, P 2011, Supply Chain Optimization, Springer, New York, NY
NOW 2010, Emiratisation NOW assure knowledge retention. Web.
SEHA 2008, Abu Dhabi Health Services Company. Web.
Stevenson, WJ 2011, Operations Management, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY