Week 13 Assignment: Health Care

Week 13 Assignment: Health Care

Question 1

From the analysis of the effort to reduce costs expenditure of the clinic while keeping the number of staff unchanged, the unit cost per visit at the start was as follows; The Total Staff Costs per Day, which is $2,000, divided by patients visit per day which is 96. When the two are divided, the Unit Cost per visit equals 20.83.

After change and staff cost per day was reduced from $2000 to $1750, the Unit cost per visit remains the same as the case at pre-change productivity. For instance, the Total Staff Costs per Day were $1,750, which has to be divided by post-change patients visit per Day 84.0, then get Unit Cost per visit after a change is 20.83.

A change in productivity always reflects the change in output among the staff members, which cannot be explained by the change in hours worked. In most instances, this can be viewed as a result of either technological advancement or improved skills. Based on the definition, productivity change is viewed as the combined effects of changes in technical efficiencies, economic scale and allocative efficiency. In case it is measured residually, some factors emerge, particularly measurement errors and capacity utilization rate. From the computation above, it is clear that change does not affect the unit cost the patient need to be charged. This is evident from the two cases where $20.83 is the unit cost per visit after and before changes. However, from my analysis, I can point out that a change in productivity is a fact that there is a change in costs, which is important to the company because it always help utilize its operations more efficiently by bringing costs to a reduced amount (Healthcare, 2020). Therefore, for the facility to maintain the number of patients visiting it, they need proper planning and good strategy execution to maintain the high number of patients within the facility.

 Question 2

In this case, I will compare the productivity of the new staffing pattern with the productivity in the original staffing plan.

In order to get the cost per filled bed in the original staffing plan, they need to take Total costs from the old plan, which was $2,000, then divide it with filled beds 8, thus getting the cost per filled bed to be $240. On the other side of the new staffing plan to get the cost per filled bed, I will have to take the total cost from a new plan which is $2,400 divided by filled beds 10, giving cost results per filled bed to be $240.

From this case, I can point out that the company's capability of utilizing all its resources efficiently gives it more ways of generating revenues. From the evaluation stated above, it is significant that from $250 cost per bed, there was a reduction to $240 to increase utilization of the hospital unit. Also, I have pointed out after significant evaluation that the increase in working hours of nurses from 4 to 4.5 hours was a sign that efficient workforce utilization can help increase productivity within the workplace. The increased working hours among the patient played a significant role in helping to increase patient care because nurses had enough time to ensure that they catered to and communicated with them. Having more time with patients as nurses makes them feel motivated, which increases their preferences in the facility going in the future (Kirigia et al., 2017). As a facility, ensuring that nurses are assigned tasks more efficiently will help them focus most of the time on tasks they excel in, thus making the organization record positive growth in terms of revenue collection and brand awareness. 

References

Kirigia, J. M., Asbu, E. Z., Greene, W., & Emrouznejad, A. (2017). Technical efficiency, efficiency change, technical progress and productivity growth in the national health systems of continental African countries. Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review, 23(2), 19-40.

Healthcare. (2020, March 23). Four ways to increase the productivity of your healthcare team. Retrieved April 4, 2022, from https://www.healthcaresupport.com/4-ways-to-increase-productivity-on-your-healthcare-team