Tactical capacity planning under uncertainty - a capacity limitation analysis.
J Health Organ Manag
; ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print)2024 Sep 13.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39259692
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE:
Tactical capacity planning is crucial when hospitals must cope with substantial changes in patient requirements, as recently experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, there is only little understanding of the nature of capacity limitations in a hospital, which is essential for effective tactical capacity planning. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH:
We report a detailed analysis of capacity limitations at a Norwegian tertiary public hospital and conducted 22 in-depth interviews. The informants participated in capacity planning and decision-making during the Covid-19 pandemic. Data are clustered into categories of capacity limitations and a correspondence analysis provides additional insights.FINDINGS:
Personnel and information were the most mentioned types of capacity limitations, and middle management and organizational functions providing specialized treatment felt most exposed to capacity limitations. Further analysis reveals that capacity limitations are dynamic and vary across hierarchical levels and organizational functions. RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS Future research on tactical capacity planning should take interdisciplinary patient pathways better into account as capacity limitations are dynamic and systematically different for organizational functions and hierarchical levels. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS We argue that our study possesses common characteristics of tertiary public hospitals, including professional silos and fragmentation of responsibilities along patient pathways. Therefore, we recommend operations managers in hospitals to focus more on intra-organizational information flows to increase the agility of their organization. ORIGINALITY/VALUE Our detailed capacity limitation analysis at a tertiary public hospital in Norway during the Covid-19 pandemic provides novel insights into the nature of capacity limitations, which may enhance tactical capacity planning.Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
COVID-19
Límite:
Humans
País/Región como asunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Health Organ Manag
Asunto de la revista:
SERVICOS DE SAUDE
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Noruega
Pais de publicación:
Reino Unido