CASE STUDY

Increased competitiveness through simulation for a healthcare group

With an educational and simple simulation tool, this professional health care provider was able to build knowledge and understanding in the business for the business effects of operational decisions in everyday life. This was an important step in the transformation to a competitive business.

The client: The customer is a publicly managed healthcare service group with over 100 healthcare units. Since 2009, the business has been fully open to competition.

The client's challenge: The client had a challenge to communicate what the competition entailed and to create understanding among managers and employees about how they could influence revenues and costs in their daily work. It was important to make clear how decisions and actions in healthcare operations affect the economy - that finances are not something secondary, but a direct result of the daily work in healthcare.

Our solution: Ekan Management developed an educational and simple simulation tool together with the customer. There, the healthcare centers received a clear and direct connection between changes in operations and financial effects. Ekan contributed with project management, expert expertise and project support in the work that was carried out in a project group consisting of the customer's employees from both operations and support functions. Some of the success factors in the project were:

• High and effective employee involvement
• Consensus around ambition and target image
• An agile way of working that enabled adjustments during the course of the project

The result: The tool enabled simulations and discussions between both managers and employees. In this way, decisions and the need for change could be substantiated and understood by all concerned. This has strengthened the business's ability to focus its energy on the changes that provide the greatest benefit. strengthens the business's profitability and long-term ability to develop. The follow-up showed that the model and the simulation tool have been very well received by the operational managers. The tool and the model provide an increased understanding of how one can also achieve a good economy through operational benefits. The project received the SAMC Award in Consulting Excellence 2018.