Seca 5

    * Describe the nature of key production processes utilized by your organization.

Kaiser Permenenate utilizes key production processes to save approximately $80,000 per year in expired inventory.  These production processes were applied to OR scheduling, which allowed the hospital to take on six more surgeries per week with the same staffing levels working the same hours as before. More surgeries translated into more hospital revenue.

    * Do you expect similar processes to be in use in five years? In ten years? Why?

I expect similar processes to be used in the next five to ten years.  I expect similar processes to be used due to the increased competition that has led to higher quality output which is very costly to produce.  Increased competition may lead to the usage of more inputs to a create a more complex output, price will be eventually manifested. Production of a more costly output bundle pushes healthcare prices upward. In order to manage this prices with the new health care reform, companies will need to improve production processes

    * How does your organization benchmark its performance against that of rivals?

Kaiser addresses their business challenges thru several benchmarking studies. Benchmarks are

operational targets that are set for each of several cost and productivity metrics. Kaiser benchmarked its performance against rivals in the following ways: identifying best practices and performance gaps and implementation of new operational strategies.