Shouldice hospital

Essay by ganeshUniversity, Master's February 2003

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CASE ANALYSIS: SHOULDICE HOSPITAL LIMITED

Executive Summary:

The Shouldice Hospital, Ontario, Canada is a pioneer in the field of treating patients suffering from external abdominal hernia. The speedy ambulation coupled with its reasonable price rates leads to satisfied patients publicizing the hospital by word of mouth.

The issues that confront the hospital management are:

·Deciding on ways to meet the backlog of operations, by expanding the hospital's capacity, while still maintaining control over the overall quality of service delivered.

·Handling piracy and bad mouthing due to piracy.

·Selection of the next chief surgeon after Dr.Obney.

After analyzing various plans of actions, it is proposed that the capacity of the hospital be increased by scheduling the operations on Saturdays also. At the same time a successor to Dr. Obney must also be selected. This solution seems like the most feasible in terms of cost and time and also leverages the existing strength of the hospital in providing quality services to the patients.

To implement the solution discussed above, first of all, awareness must be created among all the employees by means of workshops etc., about the urgent need for such a step to expand capacity. The selection of the new chief surgeon must be done by carefully scrutinizing all the surgeons in the hospital as well as interviewing new candidates for the same. The administrative processes in the hospital must be made computerized to improve their efficiency. Proper training for using them must also be imparted to the employees.

If it is not possible to increase capacity beyond a certain limit due to the above plan and the backlog list continues to expand, then opening an additional facility in some other geographical location, such as the US of A may be considered.

Situational Analysis and Problem Definition:

The Shouldice Hospital,