Within my previous blog I have given an overview of the BPM maturity for each of the industry segments. Based on the input of more than 1000 maturity checks, the Healthcare segment seemed to have the lowest BPM maturity.
To better understand what the consequences of this low BPM maturity are, we have performed additional analysis on the trends within the Hospitals and an in-depth maturity assessments at several hospitals using SAP within the Netherlands.
This BPM maturity analysis consisted out of the following steps:
- Identify the strategical trends within the hospitals
- Identify the related BPM projects within the hospitals
- Determine the average BPM maturity within the hospitals
- Evaluate the results of the BPM maturity assessments
Identify the strategical trends within the hospitals
The Roland Berger strategy group has identified the following trends within the hospitals:
1. The patients should be able to compare the hospitals, therefore the general availability of the performance indicators and the quality indicators should be improved.
2. The patients require medical treatments from different organisations like specialist, doctors, physiotherapy. Therefore the cooperation and alignment of these organisations is essential to make sure to deliver high quality care and cure for reasonable costs.
3. The long term strategy and product portfolio of the hospitals should be clearly defined and based on the current (regulatory) requirements from the government and insurance companies.
4. The hospitals should make clear choices which treatments should be provided, in order to make sure the hospitals improve their profitability and logistical performance.
5. The productivity of the hospitals to should be improved to resolve the increasing demand for medical healthcare in the future.
BPM projects within many hospitals in the Netherlands
Based on these trends within many hospitals the following BPM projects are initiated:
1. Alignment of the medical pathways between the different departments, to clarify the cooperation between the different departments to optimize the way of working.
2. Improve the process performance of the medical pathways by defining the PPI (Process Performance Indicators) and setting up a balanced score card reporting environment.
3. Alignment and rationalisation of the application portfolio required for the medical pathways and elimination of the redundant applications.
4. Integration of the medical pathways into the structure of the ERP, HIS (Hospital information System) and EPD (Electronic Patient Database) to ensure the alignment of departments and the configuration of the ICT systems.
5. Integration of the medical pathways into standardized workflows and to set up a cost reporting system, to get better insight into the cost of every treatment.
6. Alignment of the medical pathways with other healthcare organisation and the ICT integration within an accepted E-health platform.
7. Monthly monitoring of the risks and compliancy regulations to make sure that the hospital is prepared for the yearly healthcare audits.
Figure : Healthcare processes across the different healthcare organisations
Results of the BPM maturity assesments within the hospitals
Many of these BPM projects do not deliver the expected results because the BPM issues as identified by the in-depth BPM maturity assessment have not been resolved. The Enterprise BPM framework gives an overview of the most important BPM issues:
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Many of the hospitals do not have a BPM governance organisation in place which can resolve the issues as identified by the BPM maturity assessment.
The awareness of the benefits of BPM is not clear and it is difficult to get the full commitment of the Central Management Team (CMT)
Evaluate the results of the BPM maturity assessments
The ICT managers / BPM process managers of many hospitals know that these BPM issues should be resolved first, but they do not have the required authority to resolve these issues.
The hospitals have a special organisation structure in which the employees (specialists) have a big influence on the decisions process within the CMT and the ICT/BPM strategy.
The low BPM maturity level as indentified within several hospitals, indicates that the BPM decision process within the hospitals should be improved by the alignment of the demand (specialist) and supply (BPM/ICT) into a BPM change board.
Within this BPM change board the pro and cons of the BPM project decisions are elaborated and the knowledge of every participant is appreciated, so the optimal BPM project portfolio for the hospital is made and the priorities within the BPM roadmap can be agreed.
The BPM projects are necessary for the hospitals to make sure they are ready for the future and can survive in a world in which the profitability of the hospitals becomes more and more important.
The enterprise BPM framework can help organisation to indentify the required BPM projects and create a effective BPM roadmap. More information can be provided by the author.
As long as the CMT of the hospitals is not fully committed to support the BPM change board and install a fully authorized BPM governance organisation, the hospitals will have problems to efficiently complete the BPM projects, and the healthcare segment will remain to have the lowest BPM maturity level in the market.
