Healthcare Operations and Productivity Training Course

Participants can assess whether service capacity matches demand patterns and required access standards.

• Demand profiling by volume, acuity, arrival pattern and referral source
• Capacity calculations using available hours, staffing, equipment and room time
• Utilisation rates interpreted alongside waiting time and flow variation
• Seasonality analysis for elective, emergency and community care demand
• Demand-capacity gap tables for daily, weekly and monthly planning
• Scenario assumptions for surge demand and planned service expansion

Participants can map an end-to-end care pathway and identify non-value-adding steps.

• SIPOC diagrams defining suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs and customers
• Swimlane maps showing clinical, administrative and support-service handoffs
• Value stream mapping for patient journeys from referral to discharge
• Touch time, wait time and lead time calculations
• Identifying rework, duplication, queues, batching and unnecessary approvals
• Standard work documents for repeatable administrative and clinical-support tasks

Participants can create a valid baseline from operational, financial and quality data.

• Operational definitions preventing inconsistent measurement between departments
• Data validation checks for missing, duplicated and misclassified records
• Run charts tracking access, throughput, productivity and cost trends
• Rate calculations using appropriate denominators and reporting periods
• Stratifying performance data by site, specialty, acuity and pathway
• Baseline packs combining financial, activity, workforce and quality measures

Participants can calculate workforce productivity and identify staffing deployment improvements.

• Worked hours separated into productive, nonproductive and premium-paid time
• Hours per patient day calculations for inpatient services
• Workload-based staffing using activity standards and acuity indicators
• Skill-mix analysis across registered, support and administrative roles
• Roster variance review against demand, absence and overtime patterns
• Labour productivity dashboards linking hours, output, quality and cost

Participants can distinguish fixed, variable and step costs within healthcare services.

• Direct, indirect and shared costs assigned to clinical services
• Fixed, variable and semi-variable cost behaviour in service delivery
• Cost-driver trees linking activity, resources and expenditure categories
• Budget variance analysis for volume, price, mix and efficiency
• Contribution analysis for elective procedures and diagnostic services
• Avoidable cost identification without assuming all expenditure is reducible

Participants can use activity-based costing to explain service-line resource consumption.

• Activity-based costing principles for clinical and support-service activities
• Resource pools created from payroll, supplies, facilities and equipment
• Cost drivers selected for admissions, procedures, tests and consultations
• Unit-cost calculations for patient episodes and service outputs
• Comparing pathway costs across sites, specialties and treatment models
• Interpreting cost variation alongside case mix and quality outcomes

Participants can identify supply-chain controls that reduce cost without risking service continuity.

• ABC inventory classification based on annual usage value
• Critical-item segmentation using clinical risk and supply availability
• Par-level calculations for wards, theatres and diagnostic departments
• Economic order quantity assumptions and their healthcare limitations
• Purchase-price variance and usage variance in consumable spending
• Expiry, shrinkage and stock-out controls for clinical inventory

Participants can assemble a baseline improvement brief for a selected healthcare service.

• Selecting a service problem with measurable operational and financial impact
• Defining scope boundaries, stakeholders, constraints and patient groups
• Baseline metric selection using access, quality, cost and productivity
• Current-state pathway map supported by observed delays and handoffs
• Initial demand-capacity assessment for the selected service
• Improvement charter outlining aims, measures, roles and review cadence

Participants can select Lean methods to remove delay, waste and unnecessary process variation.

• Eight wastes adapted to patient, information and material flows
• 5S workplace organisation for clinical stores and support areas
• Visual management boards for daily operational control
• Standard work reducing variation in recurring service tasks
• Kaizen event structure from problem definition through follow-up
• Poka-yoke controls preventing common administrative and supply errors

Participants can identify system constraints and design actions to increase throughput.

• Theory of Constraints five focusing steps for healthcare operations
• Bottleneck identification using queue length, delay and utilisation evidence
• Drum-buffer-rope concepts adapted for scheduled patient pathways
• Protecting constrained resources from avoidable interruptions and rework
• Subordinating upstream schedules to bottleneck capacity and availability
• Throughput measures distinguished from local departmental activity targets

Participants can improve appointment systems using demand segmentation and queue controls.

• Queue characteristics: arrival variation, service variation and abandonment
• Appointment templates matched to consultation type and clinical complexity
• No-show analysis by patient segment, lead time and reminder method
• Overbooking rules balanced against waiting, idle time and patient burden
• Triage protocols directing demand to appropriate care settings
• Daily huddles managing cancellations, add-ons and unused appointment slots

Participants can design flow controls for admissions, transfers, discharge and bed capacity.

• Bed occupancy interpreted with turnover, acuity and discharge readiness
• Expected date of discharge established during admission planning
• Discharge barriers coded by clinical, social and administrative cause
• Multidisciplinary discharge huddles using escalation and ownership rules
• Bed turnaround timing from discharge order to available bed
• Admission smoothing strategies for elective and emergency demand

Participants can analyse procedure-suite utilisation and reduce avoidable lost operating time.

• Block utilisation calculated from allocated, used and released time
• First-case start reliability measured against scheduled start time
• Turnover time separated into clinical, cleaning and administrative components
• Cancellation analysis by patient, staffing, equipment and scheduling cause
• Procedure duration forecasting using specialty, surgeon and case factors
• Daily theatre control boards highlighting delays and recovery constraints

Participants can improve turnaround time and capacity coordination in support services.

• Turnaround time measures from request, collection, processing and reporting
• Laboratory workflow mapping for batching, handoffs and repeat testing
• Imaging capacity planning using modality hours and examination duration
• Portering demand analysis linked to patient movement and discharge flow
• Environmental services scheduling aligned with bed turnover requirements
• Service-level agreements defining response times, escalation and reporting

Participants can evaluate productivity actions against quality, safety and patient-experience safeguards.

• Donabedian structure, process and outcome measures for service improvement
• Balancing measures preventing cost reductions from creating clinical harm
• Failure modes and effects analysis for redesigned operational processes
• Incident trend review following staffing, flow or scheduling changes
• Patient experience measures linked to waiting, communication and coordination
• Clinical governance checkpoints for operational improvement proposals

Participants can build dashboards that distinguish normal variation from meaningful performance change.

• Statistical process control charts for operational healthcare measures
• Common-cause and special-cause variation interpreted before intervention
• Control limits distinguished from targets, specifications and tolerance bands
• Dashboard hierarchy from executive indicators to frontline daily measures
• Metric ownership, refresh frequency and escalation thresholds defined
• Visual reporting designed for rapid operational decision-making

Participants can convert operational improvements into credible financial and service benefits cases.

• Cash-releasing savings distinguished from cost avoidance and productivity gains
• Benefits registers documenting assumptions, owners, timing and evidence
• Implementation costs included in staffing, technology and training estimates
• Sensitivity analysis testing volume, uptake and resource assumptions
• Monthly variance reviews connecting actions to realised financial results
• Benefit attribution rules preventing double counting across initiatives

Participants can plan implementation controls that sustain operational improvements after launch.

• RACI matrices assigning accountability for improvement actions and decisions
• PDSA cycles testing changes before wider service implementation
• Stakeholder analysis addressing clinical, administrative and patient concerns
• Daily management systems using huddles, boards and escalation routines
• Standard operating procedures updated after validated process changes
• Sustainment audits checking adherence, outcomes and unintended consequences

Participants can build, review and present a complete healthcare operations improvement plan with baseline evidence, cost analysis, intervention design, measures and implementation controls.

• Problem statement refined using validated operational and financial baseline evidence
• Current-state analysis combines pathway, capacity, workforce and cost findings
• Improvement options assessed against safety, feasibility, benefit and risk
• Implementation roadmap assigns milestones, owners, resources and governance reviews
• Performance dashboard specifies measures, targets, control limits and reporting
• Peer review tests assumptions, risks, financial logic and presentation clarity