Case Study 4: Closing Pediatrics City Hospital has a pediatrics department with
ID: 392644 • Letter: C
Question
Case Study 4: Closing Pediatrics
City Hospital has a pediatrics department with 35 beds. For the past several years, the occupancy has varied between 40% and 60%. There is a definite downward trend, but it appears to be stabilizing at about 45% occupancy. The low occupancy has caused a financial strain. Other area hospitals are experiencing similar situations. As a result, several hospitals have proposed forming a community task force to study the situation and determine whether one or more pediatric departments should be closed, thereby increasing occupancy for those remaining. It is hoped that this will reduce costs and increase quality.
Although this proposal may benefit the community as a whole, it raises questions for City Hospital. Among them is the effect on two objectives: to provide a full range of quality services and to offer a full range of graduate medical education, including residencies in pediatrics.
Questions
1. What effect would the retrenchment strategy have on City Hospital’s objectives?
Explanation / Answer
1.
The retrenchment strategy will make the following effect upon the city hospital’s objectives.
A. The retrenchment strategy will involve closing down of one or two of the department and reducing the cost, that will cause the hospital not able to deliver services in some of the areas of the pediatrics. It will make the patients to be devoid of some specialty services. Besides, employees relocated to other department, may need training and cannot deliver the same standards of the quality services. So, overall quality delivery will be affected.
B. The city hospital will not be able to provide the full range of graduate medical education due to closing down of one or two departments. Further, city hospital needs to put a reasonable fee for the education it provides. It is important for the sustainability of the hospital.
C. The city hospital will face the challenge of relocating, training and motivation of the employees who are either laid off or sent to other departments. It creates and manpower waste and negative rumors can spread in the hospital among the employees. It will negatively affect the moral of the employees working in their own department and affecting their performance. As a result, the quality delivery as an objective will suffer. So, a one to one counselling is required in this scenario.
Therefore, the city hospital has to reorganize its model of operation with rebalancing, training and motivation of the employees in the hospital.