SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2005

FEATURE

Health care management program gives boost to Hua Shan’s hospital development

The program brought together clinical, administrative, and operational leadership from three Hua Shan hospitals.

In June, HMI welcomed a contingent of leaders from the Hua Shan Hospital for an extensive health care management program. The course was designed to enhance the capacity of the individuals to manage the development of Hua Shan’s health care facilities as the organization strives to enhance its competitive position in the greater Shanghai region.

“HMI is working with Hua Shan on comprehensive programs to raise the quality of care in their hospitals, including providing insight into facilities and operational planning, quality management training, and professional development,” said Harvey Makadon, MD, HMI vice president of health systems. “With this course, we were able to expose the management of Hua Shan to faculty with expertise relevant to Hua Shan’s particular objectives.”

Since partnering with HMI in 2001, Hua Shan has made significant progress in building their reputation as the premier provider of health care in Shanghai and the surrounding region. Located in Shanghai's embassy district, Hua Shan’s main hospital is the primary teaching hospital of the Fudan University Medical School, and construction of two new hospitals is underway. One facility, located in Shanghai’s Pudong District, will feature centers of excellence in oncology and cardiac care, and provide general medical/surgical services to the Pudong community. The city of Nanchang is the site of Hua Shan’s third campus—the Jiangxi Zhonghuan hospital, a 900-bed facility, is being built to bring high-quality health care to the previously underserved region of Jiangxi Province.

The interactive program format encouraged members of the Hua Shan team to discuss critical issues and shared concerns.

Jianhua Lin, of Hua Shan Hospital, summarized the group’s ultimate aim. “We want to be hospitals of the highest level providing high-quality services with the latest and best medical technology. This program helped us to think about the major factors that we must address to achieve our goals—including technology, demographics, environmental and social issues, economics, and governance,” he said.

The program’s participants represented all three Hua Shan sites, and their roles covered a wide range of operational functions, including administration, human resources, equipment planning, nursing, marketing, and finance.

Building a team to lead future progress
Margaret Regan, MBA, HMI manager of health systems, said that although the course curriculum addressed specific areas crucial to operating a hospital—clinical quality management, cost and payment issues, information management, public relations, and more—the underlying objective of the program was to facilitate the development of a multidisciplinary team approach to management and patient care. “The program’s interactive format gave the group the opportunity to share ideas, express their opinions and concerns, and grow as both individuals and as members of a team. It was great to see their energy and enthusiasm and watch as different people lent their voices to the discussions,” said Regan.

Margaret Regan: “With the program’s design, we aimed for a hands-on approach that would result in real solutions that could be refined and used when the group returned to China.”

The program comes at an important time in Hua Shan’s development, with new facilities on the way, and personnel settling into their new roles. While these managers have distinguished themselves in their clinical roles, the myriad day-to-day and long-term tasks associated with hospital management present new challenges to many of them. For these clinicians-turned-managers, operational efficiency, revenue, and competitive positioning are now major points of focus, in addition to patient care.

“ With the program’s design, we aimed for a hands-on approach that would result in real solutions that could be refined and used when the group returned to China,” said Regan. “So often discussions about health care delivery focus on training physicians and nurses, implementing medical technology, and treating patients, but the processes associated with financial administration, recruitment and hiring, professional development, and employee assessment are vital, and cannot be separated from the mission to provide high-quality patient care.”

Jianguang Xu, MD, PhD, MBA, president of Hua Shan Hospital, was pleased with the program. “All of the attendees seemed to benefit a lot from this management course, and had a deep impression due to the extensive knowledge and wisdom, as well as the professionalism, of the faculty,” he said, adding that the group was particularly impressed by the program’s focus on nursing.

Copyright 2006 Harvard Medical International