Digital Transformation Project – Haga Hospital

Haga hospital is a ‘top-clinical’ hospital located on two locations in The Hague. The hospital was founded in 2004 as the result of a merger between Leyenburg hospital and Stichting Samenwerkende Ziekenhuizen. We will mainly focus on the scheduling of the surgery rooms. In the interview we had with the CEO and the head of the logistic company, it quickly became clear that the scheduling of the surgery rooms is a process that can be improved.

Haga hospital is below average with their waiting times. Besides the long waiting times there are more problems with the surgery schedule. Sometimes patients are removed from the schedule. In the interview with Van Der Zalm (2016) is mentioned that the scheduling of the surgery rooms is a process which takes a lot of time. Due to the time it takes to plan, the costs for the scheduling of the surgery rooms are very high. And at lasts, the surgery rooms have a too low occupancy rate. This is due mistakes and imperfections in the schedule.

The root of these problems is mainly the scheduling of the surgery rooms. There are mistakes made by planners, there is incomplete information available to the planners and the planners do not have the capability to make the best schedules as possible. Resulting in low occupancy rates, last minute of scrapping patients of the schedule. Resulting in long waiting times. Consequently, lower quality of care. Which is not in line with the goal and strategy of Haga hospital.

To overcome the problems, we explained before we suggest to develop and implement a scheduling software. When the software is implemented and in use the value consumers who gets the information of the schedule (doctors, surgery room personnel, logistics of the surgery rooms, and the planners) can see the schedule directly. The software will basically perform as the producer of value in the current platform of the Haga hospital, HiX. To operate this as a platform the planning department can profit of the different partners in the multi-sided market. In other words, the exchange of information between the consumers of the schedule and the producers will become more visible and easier to access.

In the beginning costs will be made to implement the new system, but once they fully adapted the new system, the scheduling will be more efficient and waiting time for surgeries will be decreased enormously, leading in: (1) more satisfied patients, (2) more revenue, and (3) saving costs by reducing planning time and increasing occupation time. This will result in a better market position for Haga hospital and more surgeries every year, resulting in a stronger financial position.

We suggest to implement a digital automatic planning system to replace manual scheduling and extend the HiX system. One of our most important recommendation is:

Combining software systems; e.g. the newly acquired Ricoh patient pillars. Coupling information system to create one main platform will increase value by centralising knowledge, decreasing costs and eventually improving personnel and customer satisfaction.