Hospitals deals with a very crucial aspect of human’s life, health. Therefore, it is important for hospitals to device mechanism and systems that will improve their operations and provide quality healthcare to their casualties for sustainability. Process mechanism can never be perfect in any way, thus, organizations should seek to perform persistent and continuous improvements by initiating necessary programs that answers the diverse needs for casualties and to keep up with the evolutionary world in competition, technology, utmost care and quality assurance (John, 2013) . Organizations should assemble efforts and ideas to improve the efficiency of their operations without a significant increase in the cost of healthcare delivery and adopt mechanism to make them competitively viable in the healthcare delivery market. The costs as well should remain fairly constant and affordable by consumers. In this respect, Akron Children’s Hospital (ACH) has devised several quality improvement mechanism to enable its casualties get access to fast, quality and satisfactory medical care. This makes them a hospital of choice in a competitive market among many available alternatives. The set process improvement ideas does not only cover its operations alone, but also incorporates the skills of its employees to obtain the right mix of attending nurses that can instill a sense of confidence in casualties (James, 2016) . This paper will analyze the operational implication of process improvement focusing on the case of ACH provided.
The operational success of a pediatric hospital requires that it meets the minimum standards required in a medical setup. This covers areas such as; in-patient and out-patient services, quality assurance programs, casualty rights, admission and discharge procedures, provision of special services like surgery, respiratory care services, pharmaceutical services and emergency services, intensive care units among others (Wallace, 2012) . The regulatory and expected standards should be satisfactory both for legal basis and casualties as well. Besides, the organization should try to outdo its competitors and to gain a competitive advantage over them by improving the systems described above and making them a hospital of choice (John, 2013) . As mentioned in the case provided, the success of ACH does not only depend in improvement of the processes but also by inclusion of strong and appropriate heads and proper training for attending nurses. In this manner, the organization will experience an increased efficiency and effectiveness in their operations involving the entire campus without isolation (James, 2016) .
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In an attempt to improve its processes, ACH gives priorities to several factors and indicators that are significant for change administration. Below is the overview: improving quality, access and its revenues. The main idea is to beat its competitors by providing more medical options and agreeable programs that are easily accessed without a significant increase in cost while maximizing revenue generation; training programs (blue belt) by inducting them to the necessary skills and systems expected for the company and engages employees at all levels to achieve inclusivity (John, 2013) . Attending nurses are made aware of the hospital goals and work towards achieving the same. Besides, new opportunities surface during the training that is aimed at the success of the organization: identifying their failures and success and embracing what the organization is. ACH rewards their success and accepts their failures and provide mechanism for turning the failures into opportunities for improvement. Failures are certain but dealing with such requires that you accept and put necessary systems for improvements (John, 2013) . In this respect, other hospitals seeks to collaborate with them in provision of medical care which increases their market base. As a result, the process improvement have the following impact on the operation of the hospital: efficient program management, nursing satisfaction and retention, proper work design, improved, efficient and effective systems and operations, clinical standardization, improved operation outcome, lean operations and improved competitive operations (Wallace, 2012) .
The key advantages drawn from ACH improved processes is improved outcomes. As a pediatric hospital, ACH deals with delicate people in the society, children, because they are fragile and form the future generation and thus handled with quality care (James, 2016) . In this regard, continuous improvement is key for every medical institution. ACH has received very key positive outcomes due to their endeavor process of redesign. They have an increased revenue earning. This is due to attraction of more customers and the capacity to command a large market base. Besides, they have attracted the attention of other players in the market that reserve some specialized services and care to ACH. This implies that they command confidence even from other players and their competitors. In this way they attract quality and talented doctors and nurses in the market (Wallace, 2012) .
Efficient program management will be achieved since the three ingredients of the hospital: mindset, methodology and technology are incorporated in the process revolution. The mindset is the people, methodology is the processes mechanisms while technology refers to the technical know-how and skills (John, 2013) . Due to training initiatives, management of programs will be effective ranging from management of people, services and information. The organization can involve the trained nurses in planning various portfolios feasible for the organization at every moment. This implies that various medical care options will be available for casualties and are flexible to the changing times. The organization will be able to coordinate various programs through vertical or horizontal navigation to deliver quality healthcare to consumers. Process improvement have a close relationship with efficient system management, if the processes are initiated successfully then the entire organization will be able to integrate all its managerial concerns and be able to align the managerial responsibilities and lines for optimization (Wallace, 2012) . The hospital will able to monitor the following managerial concerns: planning of activities to suit the current changes, benefit from the successful implementation of the said programs, attract external collaboration, quality assurance, effective evaluation systems and revolutionized communication and information systems (James, 2016) . However, to have an effective management, the processes to be implemented must be evaluated and reviewed. Besides, the hospital will adopt more advance and elaborate mechanisms of sourcing, hiring and recruiting employees. The system should be elaborate enough to enable acquisition of highly qualified staffs that can fit into the improved model of the company (John, 2013) .
Also, process improvement will bring about the necessity of work design in the operation of the hospital. Work design requires that the entire workforce is to be reviewed and positions and work allocation is done properly so that attendants fit appropriately as required. Training initiatives implies that fresh knowledge and skills will be imparted in nurses and the necessarily skills will enable them to take extra responsibilities (John, 2013) . Getting the right mix of employees is just one requirement and placing them in the right duties is another that should be done with care. This should be done to enable diffusion of knowledge resources in both vertical and horizontal direction. Besides, to achieve involvement and success in the operation of the entire workforce, the commitment should travel from the top management and move critically downwards in the hospitals. Successful improvement of processes will require that operationally, the hospital is steering both technical and participatory resources to align to this improvement (John, 2013) . Work design will enable workers to fit properly in their duties and carry out their responsibilities effectively giving their best in such positions. Otherwise, wrong allocation of duties will not only waste human resources but also waste finances and drive customers away from the hospital.
Another operational impact of improved processes is the improved hospital cash flow. As mentioned in the ACH case study, the processes has seen an improved revenue. Generally, institutions work with the belief that improved processes will enable a better financial performance. This is accompanied by stability in care process which leads to efficiency and effectiveness in healthcare delivery. As a result, the institution increases its competitive ability (James, 2016) . Many customers can be served in a short time and records synchronized to enable easy access while serving casualties. As presented in the case, the time for a single person to be attended to significantly reduced from 60 to 43 minutes. It saves time for both casualties and hospital as well. Effectiveness means that the services rendered to consumers actually have an effect on them while efficiency implies that the time is saved and well utilized. This also extends to the degree of which the hospital saves on resources such as electricity, medicine and surgical tools and are used as intended to prevent wastage and unnecessary losses (Wallace, 2012) . Quality care attracts more consumers and help retain existing consumers and attracting many players hence improving performance and cash flow projection. Performance is sure to rise even if all circumstance are kept at a constant. This is the major reason why most hospitals invest in quality improvement to elevate income and control a large market share.
In addition, the hospital will have to generate or initiate an operational system for clinical standardization. This will require that the hospital device a mechanism for which it can measure its level of quality and use a comparative evaluation system against other hospitals. They keep track of their improvements against the measures put by other hospitals to keep on checking their competitive viability in the market. Therefore, they should fall within a certain range of recognized quality healthcare excellence (John, 2013) . The main aim of processes improvement is to become a market leader in the healthcare industry thus devising operational mechanism of evaluating themselves with other hospitals would be very necessary. This implies that the organization must device improved competitive operations and improved systems that will not only see the success of the hospital but also provide positive indicators and implication to the society in entirety, nursing satisfaction and retention (John, 2013) . Also, be able attract private investment, researchers and players in the continuum of pediatric medicine.
Improvement is an essential idea in every hospital setup to enable keeping up with competition and the rapidly evolving medical world, new trends and ideas. Pediatric hospitals must device models that are aimed at improvement of healthcare delivery and should form part of their culture. If children are given quality healthcare with appropriate facilities, they grow to be energetic men and women of valor who are of great promise to the society (John, 2013) . ACH has devised its improvement steps to ensure that their healthcare delivery is to a given standard that. It would be easier for ACH to implement their initiatives because of their inclusiveness in the programs. They have effectively trained their employees to enable them form part of the development agenda and help in the implementation as participators. In so doing, they have no difficulty or opposition in introducing the new ideas. A hospital that embraces change and improvement does not only show commitment to itself but also improves its public image which is key for improved performance.
References
James, L. R. (2016). Health Care Operations Management. Kindle Press.
John, K. F. (2013). Health Care Operations and Supply Chain Management: Operations, Planning, and Control. Jossey-Bass.
Wallace, H. J. (2012). Hospital Operations: Principles of High Efficiency Health Care (FT Press Operations Management). Pearson FT Press.
