Application of Value-Added Management Practice to Improve Admission Process in Healthcare Centers: A Case Study

Abstract

The essence of value engineering technique involves the critical analysis of the functions of a product/process over all of its stages and producing a creative and innovative way to achieve the function at the lowest cost. Value added management practice (VAMP) is a very efficient technique to identify and remove/improve unnecessary and inefficient processes in order to optimize both time and cost of production stages. The aim of the present paper is to develop a model to improve the admission process in hospitals using the steps of value-added management practice and its concepts. The KIMS Hospital in Bangalore (Karnataka, India) was selected to perform the case study. A Value engineering team was formed with medical professionals and the current admission process of a hospital was studied in detail and all the involved processes were drawn as a model using Lucid Chart software. A brainstorming session was conducted to identify the unnecessary and inefficient processes and to formulate creative and innovative ideas to remove/improve those processes. Simulation technique was used to record the performance of the current admission process and the improved admission process. Comparing the results, it was revealed that about 40 minutes will be saved if innovative and creative ideas are applied on the current admission procedure. Thus, it is concluded that value added management practice is an efficient method to improve the performance of services in the healthcare system.