Responses to 2 Colleagues
Review your colleagues’ posts and respond to two in one or more of the following ways.

· Offer a different perspective regarding where Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has applied key principles of systems thinking and where it appears to be lacking.

· Ask a probing question of your colleague, based on your readings from the week, your own investigation into systems thinking, and/or your experience. You should be sure to include the context for your question and why it is important to address.

· Offer any additional insight you gained after reading your colleague’s analysis.

· Suggest ways that other organizations can use the lessons from the case to apply key principles of systems thinking and why you think it is important for organizations to do so.

General Guidance: Your Discussion responses, will each typically be 1–2 paragraphs in length as a general expectation/estimate.

1st Colleague to respond to:

In any hospitalized center the key ingredient is to utilize its tools and resources to cure patients and make sure they are receiving the care that they need. But such care is expensive but must be done. Any hospital must have fresh equipment, equivalent doctors and nurses, the scope of treatment, cleanliness, rooms, food, etc. When a hospital has efficient production, it is expected to operate at a maximum output cost. This is a measure of how the production processes. Poor healthcare relates to operational efficiency. Eliminating waste is one of the dimensions. Measures will be required to regularly report and compare to target levels. The measurement data needs to be analyzed. To do that it is important to set some time aside and work with quality improvements. Patients need to receive appropriate care. If patients were to receive adequate care from the start then additional requirements would not have been necessary. It would have been cost-effective as well.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has applied key principles towards their hospitalized patients in receiving the necessary care that they needed. From entering through different departments to transfer, to different equipment being used, and lastly being discharged. Most of the hospital protocol was routined and predictable, however their lack of medical information and disease knowledge were changed frequently. This knowledge puts patients on edge. Not knowing the diagnosis can cause worry and stress. According to Edmondson and Tucker (2011), “The complexity of patient care and the prevalence of system failures created opportunities to improve the reliability and efficiency of the systems through which care was delivered” (p. 2). Cincinnati maintained patients’ records efficiently and was very well organized. This is helpful in serious conditions.

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital is working diligently to care for patients’ well-being as well as the financial side. They are aiming for new levels of quality and quantity. Strategically they are planning on incorporating systematic approaches to quality, service, and performances. This idea may seem great but it will not be easy. Kotagal utilized this information by asking the family for a list of their notation on perfect care. The team made changes over the next years. They used different techniques including a therapist, care after discharge, and goals. They realized these small changes improved the overall quality of experience.

Reference:

Edmondson, A., & Tucker, A. (2011). Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center [Case study]. HBS Case 9-609-109. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School

2nd Colleague to respond to:

Systems Thinking

System thinking is the ability to make a management or operation decision and analyze this decision to know its outcomes, impact, or the additional changes that will be required. “Managers are regrettably ignorant of the fact that their business organisations are ‘designable’. But recently, concepts such as business re-engineering and systems thinking, coupled with advances in methods of quantifying business systems, have enabled managers to scrutinize their business systems afresh.” (Van Ackere et al., 1993).

CCHMC applied didn’t apply key principles of systems thinking when they went after the Perfection grant to improve their CF treatments. This grant required them to disclose their performance to the patients or the patient’s parents. Something that CCHMC didn’t think would be necessary. They also had to do a performance report based on their CF services and compare it with other CF centers. It’s only when they went after the grant they realized how poor their treatment was. If CCHMC had applied key principles of systems thinking before pursuing the perfection grant they would have analyzed this decision by doing a performance report, by doing a survey, or comparing their services to other centers before pursuing the grant. This would give them enough time to come up with strategic solutions to the problems that could have impacted this decision. For example, they took a chance by inviting the parents of CF patients to work closely with them. Which was a good decision but at the same time they didn’t analyze this decision to know what could be the impact and how to prepare for the impact. The parents could have sued them after seeing their poor performance report. They were lucky that the parents took their decision of being transparent in a good way.

CCHMC applied key principles of systems thinking for their project, spreading improvement efforts throughout the medical divisions because instead of making changes they hired QIC experts and analysts to help implement the changes. CCHMC also showed effective systems thinking while working on improving science training and projects. Those who graduated from this training were to analyze a project and where there could be damage to this project. Think about the consequences or where it breaks down. The curriculum of this training is almost like systems thinking. It makes you think about a project and analyze every step of the project that will give an idea of future results. This will help to find out if the project will work or not and what could be the disadvantages or advantages of this project. System thinking helps with decision making by helping leaders to manage the outcomes of their decisions. If using systems thinking to solve complex problems, a leader can use different tools to help with systems thinking such as graphs, diagrams, or computer illustrations. With this, a leader can see the different elements of their decisions over time. This will avoid the organization to waste time or money. This system approach allows the organization to see the different connections with the different departments. “A systems thinking approach allows the realization of various interrelations and working schemes in the organization and helps to identify regularities of the organizational development. The application of systems thinking principles cannot guarantee success but may be a useful means or a permanent form of activity when solving conceptual problems.” (Skarzauskiene, 2010).

References

Van Ackere, A., Larsen, E. R., & Morecroft, J. D. W. (1993, December). Systems thinking and business process redesign: An application to the beer game. ScienceDirect. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0263237393900053

Skaržauskien?, A. (2010, November 16). Managing complexity: systems thinking as a catalyst of the organization performance. Emerald Insight. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/13683041011093758/full/html