79065 - Management Systems in Healthcare

Learning outcomes

At the end of the course student is introduced to the principles of quality management in healthcare organizations. By the end of the course, the student is able to: adopt a process perspective to quality management and improvement; understand variation in processes; examine and critique continuous improvement approaches; understand the importance of quality management in healthcare organizations; discuss and critically asses examples of implementations of lean management in healthcare; use of improvement tools; understand the role of performance measurement in continuous improvement; reconcile attempts to incremental and radical innovation in healthcare. Al termine del corso lo studente è introdotto ai principi di gestione della qualità nelle organizzazioni sanitarie. Alla fine del corso lo studente è in grado di: • adottare una prospettiva di processo alla gestione e al miglioramento della qualità • comprendere variazione nei processi • esaminare e criticare gli approcci di miglioramento continuo • comprendere l'importanza della gestione della qualità nelle organizzazioni sanitarie • discutere e valutare criticamente esempi di implementazione di lean management in sanità • usare strumenti di miglioramento della qualità • comprendere il ruolo della misurazione delle prestazioni nel processo di miglioramento continuo • conciliare i tentativi di innovazione incrementale e radicale nel settore sanitario.

Course contents

This module looks at how healthcare organisations can measure, manage and improve their performance. In particular, we will consider connections between strategy, performance measurement and continuous improvement - and examine how these elements can positively affect the performance of organizations and individuals.

We first look at strategy formulation and implementation, to understand how to set priorities and direction in organisations, and to define how the main objectives should be achieved. We then turn to performance management as a key means to execute strategy: while organizations may design appropriate corporate and business strategies, they usually fail to execute them. Therefore, we will consider how this could be avoided and, in particular, how performance measurement systems – balanced scorecards, dashboards, etc. - could help put strategy into practice.

Finally, we link performance measurement and management to improvement and innovation. Healthcare organizations are increasingly required to be more efficient, provide greater value to patients/customers, and address the needs of their key stakeholders. However, research shows that short term ‘fixes’ and mere applications of tools rarely work. In this module we will see how improvements can be achieved and sustained only through a deep understanding – and sometimes re-engineering - of organizational processes, and through the promotion of learning and improvement at individual, team and organizational levels.

This module is rooted in the real world: we will look at the latest thinking and tools, carry out exercises (e.g., on how to develop strategy, scorecards, targets and indicators), and use real examples from various organisations. At the same time, we will look for relevant academic work that could explain why certain approaches work or not, and what we could do to effectively manage performance in organizations.

Readings/Bibliography

The main texts we will use are:

Gray, D., Micheli, P. and Pavlov, A., (2014), Measurement madness – Recognising and avoiding the pitfalls of performance measurement, John Wiley & Sons.

Slack, N., Brandon-Jones, A. and Johnston, R. (2013), Operations management, 7^th ed., Pearson.

Specific pre-readings are:

Day 1:

Gray, Micheli and Pavlov – Part I (chapters 1 and 2)

Kaplan, R. S. and Norton, D. P. (1992), ‘The Balanced Scorecard - Indicators that drive performance', Harvard Business Review, Vol. 70, No. 1, pp. 71-79.

Kaplan, R.S., Norton, D.P. (2000). ‘Having trouble with your strategy? Then map it’, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 78, No. 5, pp. 167–176.

Day 2:

Gray, Micheli and Pavlov – Chapter 7

Day 3:

Gray, Micheli and Pavlov – Chapter 6

Days 4-5:

Slack et al. – Chapters 15 (pp. 464-481), 17 (pp. 534-551) and 18 (pp. 578-592).

Assessment methods

The marks for this module are awarded for an individual assignment.

The essay will have to be 2,500 words’ long (+/- 10%), excluding references and tables. Longer or shorter essays will not be marked.

Greater detail will be provided on the first and last days of the module.

Office hours

See the website of Pietro Micheli