From general to specialty hospitals: operationalising focus in healthcare operations

Mandar Dabhilkar () and Anna Svarts ()
Additional contact information
Mandar Dabhilkar: Stockholm University
Anna Svarts: KTH Royal Institute of Technology

Operations Management Research, 2019, vol. 12, issue 1, No 6, 94-111

Abstract: Abstract This study proposes an operationalisation of the term focus in healthcare operations. We develop a configuration model consisting of six interrelated dimensions that can be used to characterise hospital focus. The proposed dimensions of focus are Knowledge areas, Procedures, Medical conditions, Patient groups, Planning horizons and Levels of difficulty. The strength of these dimensions is shown through empirical examination, using a three-step methodology to analyse case study data from a unique transformation project where general hospitals were turned into new types of focused specialty hospitals. As our study takes a portfolio approach to the allocation of demand segments to different healthcare delivery units, it contributes to operations management knowledge with a model for segmenting healthcare demand from an operations perspective. This configuration model provides researchers and practitioners with a tool for understanding current configurations as well as for identifying potential new configurations of focus in healthcare.

Keywords: Focused factory; Health care operations management; Operations strategy; Configuration model; Case research; Stockholm County Council (SLL) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12063-018-0137-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:opmare:v:12:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s12063-018-0137-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/12063

DOI: 10.1007/s12063-018-0137-8

Access Statistics for this article

Operations Management Research is currently edited by Jan Olhager and Scott Shafer

More articles in Operations Management Research from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().