Shouldice Hospital

Starting any new business is like a discipline that is mastered by consistency, dedication, as well as self-discipline. The main complication starts at the point that there is no any specific best approach of starting any business in a best way and there is no explanation regarding the best approach of the whole process. However, in the last few decades, technology has brought many positive changes and in the healthcare industry, the contribution of technology is highly significant. The healthcare industry is very much regulated and the healthcare start-ups are the most attractive ventures of these days throughout the world (Jones, Rudin, Perry & Shekelle, 2014). Healthcare start-ups are not same as the other start-ups and it is quite difficult to be visible in the market of competition because already, there are multiple well-established and reputed organizations with decades of experience in the market. Due to this purpose, entrepreneurs should embrace a unique approach before opening any enterprise related to healthcare industry. Healthcare start-ups are basically the future of healthcare and investing in the health transformers onto which the future of healthcare is highly dependent is extremely challenging and important at the same time. In order to follow approaches of other well-recognized healthcare organizations, there are various examples in the market and one of the best examples is the story of Shouldice Hospital (Malik, Bell, Stukel & Urbach, 2016). The success story of Shouldice Hospital is one of the best reminders that remind how the right ingredients and practice of the workers can be effective in the success of a healthcare organization.  

Shouldice Hospital is a private hospital of Toronto and it was founded by Edward Shouldice and is commissioned by the Ministry of Health. The value of the hospital is integrated into each of its aspects and the service culture in which it operates is very much rational. Before getting into the thought of starting a new enterprise regarding healthcare, the success story and working practice of Shouldice Hospital can be one of the best examples. The effective utilization of its value proposition is helping the hospital in gaining more popularity and attracting the consumers. It is also one of the greatest reasons of the increased number of patients to it. In addition, the performance of the workers also plays a major role in the success of the hospital (Wirtz & Zeithaml, 2018). The hospital follows five different dimensions of service quality that includes reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles. Reliability pertains to the ability of the organization that ensures its consumers a quality of services. It helps the organization in creating the positive word of mouth. Responsiveness is related to the readiness to assists the customers and instant response to furnish immediate service. The workers of the hospital have a unique accessibility and follow a unique service delivery process to undertake the immediate attention for the patients. Assurance of the organization can be defined as the ability to inspire trust as well as confidence of its consumers. The organization has positioned itself as specialization in this area. Empathy pertains to the personalized attention and caring provided by the organization to its consumers. The hospital provides high care to this dimension. Tangibility pertains to the appearance of service and facilities provided to the patients. The hospital adopts a value chain to manage the service delivery and it is focussed (Giwa, Salami & Abioye, 2018).

Principles of capacity management

Capacity management is a kind of management that limits the resources of the organization that includes manufacturing, technology and equipment, labour force and others. The primary goal of this is to ensure that all the resources are being properly utilized by the organization for the benefit of its customers and its reputation. It basically seeks to provide a continual optimal balance between the supply against demand and cost against the required resources (Balakrishnan, Goico & Arjmand, 2015). Inadequate as well as improper capacity management can affect the financial performance of any business prospectus. Capacity management is associated with many concerns of any business organization as it monitors the performance of the company and at the same time it is concerned with the performance analysis of the measured data. It is also concerned with the performance tuning of activities to ensure the efficient use of the infrastructure of the current organization. Another principle of capacity management is to understand the demand of the services and the future plans to grow the working efficiency of the organization. In order to start a venture of new enterprise the role of the principles of capacity management is highly efficient as well as significant. At the initial stage, any start up can face lot of difficulties to get established in the market and in this regard, the principles of capacity management are highly recommendable (Bittner & Chen, 2018).

Three different business components are there that presented problem for the working efficiency of the Shouldice Hospital in the 1940s. Those three business components are fixed capacity, limited staff and large demand (Zeitz & Watson, 2018). At the very beginning, the hospital had a waiting list of 300 patients and only one surgeon was there who could perform two hernia repairs a day. Fixed capacity and limited staff were two issues, in which the operating capacity of the organization was limited. Gradually, the demand increased and the grow capacity became one of the greatest issues for Shouldice Hospital. However, the recovery time in the hospital was much shorter that leads to the increased demand. This opened a path for the organization to perform the specialized external abdominal hernia surgery. Again, as the demand continued to increase, the grow demand also became another issue. However, maintain proper control of operation and including an efficient work force into the practice of working can be highly effective as well as helpful. Maintaining the service quality and reducing the time of giving response to the consumers can also be helpful in this regard (Reynolds, 2015). Apart from that, the use of proper technology can assist the organization to be more responsive as well as instant to its customers. In the proposed start-up, if the principles of capacity management can be applied then it could be cheaper as well. In order to avoid such issues, the new start-up should find the proper steps and follow it thoroughly. In the new start-up, it is important to create short goals at first and it should integrate its values to the business. The enterprise should follow the five dimensions as followed by the Shouldice Hospital while providing care to its patients (Jame, Johnston, Markov & Wolfe, 2016).

Business components

Shouldice Hospital has a target audience of patients with hernia and such type of target audience is associated with various advantages. The main advantage is it can cut down the duration of staying in the hospital which in turn creates room for new patients. In this way, the operating cost can be reduced, recurrence rate can be minimal which is attractive for the patients (Feldman, Gilson & Villalonga, 2014). In Shouldice, the focus is on hernia repair and the acute forecasting influence the business decision of the hospital. The operations are done quickly and the post-operative care is less likely to be required and thus the cost is also reduced. 

Since established, Shouldice Hospital performed over 380,000 successful hernia repairs and each year, more than 6500 patients trust the hospital to cure their hernia. People from different age group with their hernia come to the hospital. According to the demographic information or idea of the Shouldice Hospital, the new start up can be designed. The particular disease area as well as age of the participants can be termed as the target audience before starting any new enterprise in this regard (Malik, Bell, Stukel & Urbach, 2016). Also, it will help us with the start-up enterprise.

Any business should stop growing when the risk of growth outweighs the benefits. The bigger the business becomes the chances of risk becomes more. Shouldice have also determined to stop its growth as the economic risk was hampering the benefits of it. When the risk will be reduced, it will be easier to determine that the growth has been plateau. In order to fit in its expanded capacity, the hospital should recruit more staffs to meet the customers’ need. Moreover, the hospital should utilize media to inform public about its effectiveness. There is also a need Shouldice to open up self-contained branches especially in the region.

Conclusion

To sum it up, it can be said, Shouldice Hospital is a good example of a successful start-up which can be inspirational. The process and techniques of it can be helpful for new organizations to acquire. 

References

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Bittner, R., & Chen, D. (2018). Editorial commentary to the paper “A case for open inguinal hernia repair” written by John Morrison. International Journal of Abdominal Wall and Hernia Surgery, 1(3), 74.

Feldman, E. R., Gilson, S. C., & Villalonga, B. (2014). Do analysts add value when they most can? Evidence from corporate spin?offs. Strategic Management Journal, 35(10), 1446-1463.

Giwa, F., Salami, A., & Abioye, A. I. (2018). Hospital esophagectomy volume and postoperative length of stay: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The American Journal of Surgery, 215(1), 155-162.

Jame, R., Johnston, R., Markov, S., & Wolfe, M. C. (2016). The value of crowdsourced earnings forecasts. Journal of Accounting Research, 54(4), 1077-1110.

Jones, S. S., Rudin, R. S., Perry, T., & Shekelle, P. G. (2014). Health information technology: an updated systematic review with a focus on meaningful use. Annals of internal medicine, 160(1), 48-54.

Malik, A., Bell, C. M., Stukel, T. A., & Urbach, D. R. (2016). Recurrence of inguinal hernias repaired in a large hernia surgical specialty hospital and general hospitals in Ontario, Canada. Canadian Journal of Surgery, 59(1), 19.

Reynolds, P. D. (2015). Business creation stability: why is it so hard to increase entrepreneurship?. Foundations and Trends® in Entrepreneurship, 10(5–6), 321-475.

Wirtz, J., & Zeithaml, V. (2018). Cost-effective service excellence. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 46(1), 59-80.

Zeitz, K., & Watson, D. (2018). Principles of capacity management, applied in the mental health context. Australian Health Review, 42(4), 438-444.