Business Development Metrics

The Balanced Score Card (BSC) emphasises that the financial and non-financial aspects must be a part of the information system for employees at all levels of organisation. The BSC translates a business unit’s mission and strategies into tangible objectives and measures. Though many organisations had clear cut business missions and visions, yet they could not be translated into fruitful results, owing to lack of proper policies and guidelines. The BSC thus brings about the following benefits:

• It helps hospitals to make an in-depth study of all their processes, include new processes and delete those processes which were contributing to non performance.
• The processes are not only aligned to the business needs, but also have certain measurable indices attached to them so that the performance of each process could be monitored.
• It has improved the employee engagement index, training, development of existing employees as well as induction of fresh talents in the organisation every year.
• This has led to continuous improvement in internal processes like medical process excellence, nursing process excellence, leading to reduction of mortality, morbidity and infection rate.
• It has also led to cost optimisation of each individual procedure, thus helping to offer competitive package to customers.

Implementation of Six Sigma

Six Sigma is one of the most popular quality methods used lately. It is the rating that signifies best-in-class with only 3.4 defects per million units of operations (DPMO). The concept works and results in remarkable and tangible quality improvements when implemented wisely.

Six Sigma recognises that there is a direct correlation between the member of product defects, wasted operating costs and the level of customer satisfaction. In short, Six Sigma is a method to eliminate defects. It utilises a statistical unit of measurement to measure the capability of the process, then achieve defect-free performance, and ultimately increase the bottom line and customer satisfaction. The working of Six Sigma is based on five activities of define, measure, analyse, improve and control (DMAIC).

Few hospitals in India had the courage of going ahead and trying to implement Six Sigma in certain departments. Departments where customer satisfaction and profitability are directly related to cycle time and material use have benefited the most from Six Sigma. Six Sigma as a process has helped to reduce OPD waiting time, door-to-needle time for indoor admissions, optimal utilisation of under used facilities like cath lab, CT scan and MRI machines. It has also helped in optimising inventories, thereby reducing incidences of blocked finances or crisis purchase.

The implementation of Six Sigma happens in four phases:

Phase 1: Key problems areas are identified and quantified.
Phase 2: Potential product or process improvement solutions found and quantified.
Phase 3: Multi-functional teams improve key process.
Phase 4: Improvements are implemented and monitored.

With Six Sigma, many hospitals which are following various types of accreditation, process improvement techniques and adopting a minimum defect approach have immensely benefited in terms of brand enhancement, better market positioning, employee engagement, optimum resource utilisation and profitability.

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