Outsourcing of Hospital Services CASE Due to financial pressures that many hospi
ID: 350564 • Letter: O
Question
Outsourcing of Hospital Services CASE Due to financial pressures that many hospitals face, the Deaconess Cinic in Billings, Montana, decided to outsource a number of services although in somewhat different ways Questions 1. In some instances the outsourced service occurs in a different loca- First, the hospital outsourced its cafeteria food service. Although the tion, while in others t takes place inside the organization doing the tood service employees were hired by the outside firm, they still elt a outsourcing, as the food service did in this case. What advantages sense of ownership of their jobs, and still felt connected to the hospital were there in having the outsourced work performed within the hos pital? Suppose a different hospital outsourced its food service but because of the family atmosphere in the kitchen and the cafeteria When the hospital tried the same thing with housekeeping employee decided not to have the work performed in-house. What might umover became a problem. An investigation revealed that because the rationale be? housekeeping employees were more isolated in their work, they lost 2. In the housekeeping situation, wity not just forget about outsoure- em was solved by hiring the employees back but using the outsource company to manage housekeeping tlittle feeling of being connected to the hospital they had. The prob- ing, especially since the hospital ended up rehiring ts employes 3. For laundry service, what might have been the rationale for asking The hospital also decided to outsource its laundry service. This time the hospital approached a rival hospital about joining it in outsourcing Source Based on Norm Friedman, "ts Outsourcing the Soluton? aundry service. www.hpnonline.com/inside/June04 outsourcing htmExplanation / Answer
The advantages in having the outsourced work performed within the hospital are that the staff feels connected to the job with the sense of ownership of their job. In house services are comfortable for them which will further improve their efficiency and thus delivering quality to customers. In house operations allow management to monitor the operations to deliver quality services. If it decide to outsource the food service to a different hospital this may reduce their cost of electricity,inventory,storage,cleaning etc and would give more time for management to focus on other key areas such as expansion. The outsourcing of the housekeeping services did not work as the staff did not feel connected with the hospital resulting in high turnover of employees. The hospital rehired its employees but kept the management of housekeeping outsourced. The need to fill jobs is also the main reason for outsourcing For laundry service it might have asked another hospital to join in order to have access to more professional service thus improving the quality of operations. It might have been profitable for the hospital to outsource in the growing competition. Insufficiency of workforce could also be the reason.
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