An Integrated Approach to Evaluating and Improving Performance of an Outpatient Healthcare Group in Singapore

Alicia Huang Yan

Abstract

Increasing emphasis is being placed on measures of efficiency and performance improvement in the healthcare industry given the need to ensure the best use of scarce resources. This paper aims to develop an integrated approach to the evaluation and performance improvement of an outpatient healthcare group in Singapore. The methodologies includes the integration of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Data Analytics, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (CEA) and Continuous improvement. The case study was conducted based a local Outpatient Healthcare Group. Applying DEA, it was found that 35% of outpatient’s clinics in the group were technically inefficient. Next data analytics was applied to identify the key factors that affect the performance of the clinics. Next, several efficiency improvement solutions were identify and QFD applied to ensure that they meets the requirements. AHP is then used to rank the effectiveness of the solutions before cost-effectiveness analysis is carried out to identify the most affordable solutions. Finally, continuous improvement methods are introduced to reassess the efficiency of the outpatient’s clinics. The thesis shows that the integration of the above methodologies can assists the company in achieving its objectives. It is able to determine the degree of technical efficiency of individual clinic within the company; to help the company to identify the problems, to recommend the performance targets for inefficient facilities; to estimate the magnitudes of excess inputs; to narrow down the key issues and have a clear decision-making process from various solutions and to look at the efficiency again to further analysis for continues improvement.