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Discuss the potential impact on competitive advantage for the organisation as a result of the efforts to improve patient discharge and patient flow. Analyse this from the point of view of: value, rareness, imitability, and sustainability. Outline both strengths and weaknesses this initiative may have on competitive advantage. Where relevant bring in your own experiences and strategic thinking.
INTERNAL ANALYSIS ( STRATEGIC PLANNING)
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Patient discharge refers to the process in which a patient is released from the hospital after being declared medically fit by the healthcare providers. The following are the potential impacts on competitive advantage as a result of the efforts to improve patient discharge and patient flow. One of the potential impacts is enhancing the value of healthcare services. The hospital can release the patients at the right time, allowing healthcare providers to concentrate on the remaining number of patients (NHS 2017, p. 76). The second possible impact is increasing the rareness of the services offered by the hospital. Improving patient discharge makes the hospital provide unique services to the patients who cannot be easily found in other health centers (Destino et al. 2019, p. 24). The other potential impact is enhancing the imitability of healthcare services. Improving patient discharge increases the willingness of other health centers to copy the services offered by the hospital. Another potential impact is increasing the sustainability of the organization (Strong & Bettin 2015, p. 57). It makes the health center serve more patients, increasing revenue and profit.
The following are the strengths and weaknesses that the initiative of improving patient discharge and patient flow may have on competitive advantage. One of the strengths is increasing patient satisfaction. Discharging the patients at the right time will make them satisfied with the quality of services offered in the hospital (NHS 2017, p. 77). The other strength is enhancing the reputation of the hospital. It creates a positive image on the people’s mind about the health center. The main weakness of this initiative is that it increases the cost of operation (Destino et al. 2019, p. 26). Increasing patient discharge requires the health center to incur additional costs on matters like training and educating the health providers.
References
Destino, L., Bennett, D., Wood, M., Acuna, C., Goodman, S., Asch, S.M. and Platchek, T., 2019. Improving Patient Flow: Analysis of an Initiative to Improve Early Discharge. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 14(1), pp.22-27. https://mdedge-files-live.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/files/s3fs-public/issues/articles/jhm014010022.pdf
NHS (2017). ‘Managing Variations in Patient Discharge.’ In Improving Patient Flow in the NHS – Case Studies on Reducing Delays: 75-77. https://www.england.nhs.uk/improvement-hub/wp-content/uploads/sites/44/2018/06/No-Delays-Achiever-Case-Studies.pdf
Strong, S. and Bettin, A., 2015. An initiative to improve patient discharge satisfaction. Rehabilitation Nursing, 40(1), pp.52-59. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/rnj.155
