Efficiency of an organization should be the top priority for the senior management team (SMT) of that organization. In the recent times, focus has shifted from measuring the traditional financial parameters to measuring internal processes & customer centric parameters for evaluating the performance of the concerned organization. Every domain including the healthcare sector is trying to implement and equip themselves with processes, methodologies & technologies which not only create a path for increased market share and leadership, but also to increase the trust of the customer they are catering to. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one such management tool, which provides a detailed and inclusive business performance indication by incorporating both financial and non-financial parameters.
While bigger healthcare set-ups would have various mechanisms to monitor, measure, analyse and evaluate the performance of the organization, an attempt is being made via this project, to bring in such a mechanism for smaller healthcare set-ups like diagnostic centres to not only keep tabs on its performance but also enhance the same.
For the purpose of this project, a diagnostic centre located in Bangalore was identified. The diagnostic centre provides CT Scan and other diagnostic services. Our organization took up the task of designing the BSC and implementing the same at the identified diagnostic centre.
The design of the BSC started with a comparative analysis of the main competitors of the diagnostic centre. Google reviews and Websites were analysed to find out the gaps in the processes, methodologies and technologies. In the context of the work processes and internal environment analysis, a set of questionnaires was prepared for onsite interviews. These questionnaires apart from questions on other topics include questions on the four perspectives of the BSC.
Best practices of those organizations who have won EFQM, MBNQA, Palladium Award & CII-Exim Bank Award for Business Excellence were also considered in this research3 Though the working models of these organizations are different, the focus is very much on increasing the efficiency of the organization through measuring & evaluating processes which are customer centric, internal processes & other related parameters. After analysing the data collected, it is inferred that the concerned diagnostic centre is providing considerably good service to all the patient they cater to. However, there is scope of improvement in the performance of the diagnostic centre.
Out of the 21 parameters considered from Google reviews, 3 parameters had more weightage and importance from the patient perspective. The order of priority of the key parameters from the patient perspective are: Timeliness of the reports, Pricing of the services provided and Professionalism of the staff while providing the services. Overall, it could be inferred that parameters of Competitor-1 would be best suited to be utilized as the benchmark for the concerned diagnostic centre. Considering this analysed data and the best practices, a standard strawman of the BSC has been devised according to the four perspectives of BSC namely finance, customer, internal process & learning and growth. Key initiatives to be undertaken has also been arrived at. Implementation plan for the BSC for the diagnostic centre is also outlined. The intention is that any diagnostic centre should be able to implement this BSC to see an improvement in the organization’s performance.
Successful implementation of the BSC combined with the motivated employees of the diagnostic centre will create the path for a progressive change in the organization, thus paving the way for earning the trust of the customer and also move in the direction of achieving the mission & vison of the diagnostic centre
