The increasing healthcare cost has put enormous pressure on healthcare providers recently. On the search for innovate ways of controlling the medical care price and maintaining high service levels, healthcare leaders come across the question of outsourcing. Most commonly, hospitals outsource such non-core services as food preparation, cleaning, engineering, and laundry (Roberts, Henderson, Olive, & Obaka, 2013). On the one hand, giving up these services to specialized companies can decrease the medical care cost for customers and enable hospital authorities to focus on the core medical necessities (Tadia et al., 2016). On the other hand, outsourcing may raise certain legal, ethical, and moral issues to medical care authorities. While the decision to outsource services may be hard to make, it may offer very enticing financial results.
Outsourcing Food Services
The choice of Deaconess Clinic in Billings, Montana to outsource food services is rational and common in today’s practice. In the food service business, outsourcing vendors can take up food preparation and serving to patients, employees, and visitors (Roberts et al., 2013). No doubt, some concerns may arise from the decision of outsourcing the cooking and serving to healthcare users. It is important to realize and consider with all cautiousness that various complex legal issues may arise. For example, an outsourcing vendor’s employee failed to follow the prescribed patient’s diet and served inappropriate food that resulted in severe symptoms’ aggravation. In this situation, it is not clear who is at fault, the hospital, the outsourcing vendor, the individual employee, or all the above. There are also moral questions, such as leaving a whole department without jobs after turning to outsourcing.
Despite the concerns mentioned above choosing outside service providers for food preparation implement considerable improvements in the question. For instance, in some hospitals “innovative ideas, such as room service style dining, provide an opportunity for the patients to order a meal at their convenience” (Roberts et al., 2013, p. 2). Moreover, turning to outsourcing food services has made the matter more cost-efficient and allowed the hospital to achieve a competitive advantage by focusing on their core competencies (Roberts et al., 2013).
Most hospitals choose to offer dining services within the hospital building, as it poses apparent advantages for the clients. First, there is no need for clients to go anywhere outside the hospital as the cafeteria is easy to access. Second, the food service employees feel a sense of ownership of their job and feel connected to the hospital, as the case of Deaconess Clinic showed (Stevenson, 2018). Third, there is a possibility to rehire the previous staff thus avoiding some ethical and moral problems with ex-employees. At the same time, there is also a rationale in keeping food services outside the hospital building. The space cafeteria occupies may be used for additional doctors’ offices or other core-related rooms. Moreover, touching upon the legal aspect, if a client gets food poisoning outside the hospital building, no legal charges can be put against hospital authorities (Roberts et al., 2013). In short, even though there are clear drawbacks in outsourcing hospital’s food service, the advantages of having catering on or out of campus surpass all expectations.
Outsourcing Housekeeping
Outsourcing cleaning and housekeeping is also typical in the United States and Europe, though turning to outside service providers is a matter of more significant consideration than in the case with food service. Healthcare cleaners deal with blood and body fluids, human tissue and non-biological matter such as needles, wound dressings, and packaging (Siganporia et al., 2016). Therefore, these employees are a high-risk group for occupational injuries and need specialized training to perform a high level of service (Siganporia et al., 2016). Besides that, housekeeping workers are more isolated and do not feel an emotional connection with the hospital that leads to a high employee turnover rate (Stevenson, 2018).
At the same time, the advantages of having housekeeping duties outsourced are numerous and significant. First, hiring an outside firm to provide cleaning services is more cost-efficient. Outsourcing vendors buy all the supplies needed for the job at a much lower price and have all the equipment intact to operate anytime. Second, as in the case with food service, giving up more non-core competencies to outside service providers enable the hospital authorities to focus on the medical issues (Siganporia et al., 2016).
Due to the facts mentioned above the decision of outsourcing housekeeping may appear hard to make. However, there is a way to embrace all the advantages and avoid most of the problems concerning the matter. There is always a possibility to hire the employees back but using the outsource company to manage housekeeping, as the Deaconess Clinic in Billings, Montana did (Stevenson, 2018). On the one hand, this solution allows the hospital to keep well-trained and experienced employees that already feel connected to the hospital (Siganporia et al., 2016). On the other hand, hospital authorities save money by letting the specialized company take care of the cleaning. In brief, while there may appear to be some obvious problems with outsourced housekeeping employees, hospital managers should consider outsourcing the matter avoiding drawbacks.
Outsourcing Laundry
The question with giving up laundry to outside service providers is more apparent than with giving up any other competence. As Tadia et al. (2016) mention, there are no obvious drawbacks in outsourcing laundry except for a minor increase in time taken to wash linen. Large companies, like Sodexo, offer laundry services at the hospital facility or Sodexo’s building (Roberts et al., 2013). The laundry services can process and return laundry within one day, thus making the drawback mentioned above not relevant. Roberts et al. (2013) state that “two or more hospitals might collaborate on a joint laundry service to obtain better value” than if trying to do it alone (p.2). The rationale here is that teaming with another hospital, lowers the non-direct cost of laundry services, such as transportation, workforce, and equipment (Tadia et al., 2016). It is especially true for hospitals that are located in the same vicinity, as transportation costs decrease considerably. Overall, letting an outside company manage hospital’s laundry is rational particularly if joining other hospitals.
Conclusion
The belief of hospitals’ management that their staff can perform a better job at a lower price than outsourcing vendors is slowly shrinking in popularity. More hospitals consider outsourcing their support services, like food preparation, laundry, housekeeping, and engineering, to reduce operating costs every day. Moreover, healthcare providers benefit in service level by focusing on their core competencies and letting the professional deal with support services. Despite considerable drawbacks, the researchers examined in the paper advise hospitals’ authorities to turn their heads to outsourcing non-core competencies to outside service providers.
References
Roberts, J., Henderson, J., Olive, L., & Obaka, D. (2013). A Review of outsourcing of services in health care organizations. Journal of Outsourcing & Organizational Information Management, 1-10.
Siganporia, P., Astrakianakis, G., Alamgir, H., Ostry, A., Nicol, A., & Koehoorn, M. (2016). Hospital support services and the impacts of outsourcing on occupational health and safety. International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, 22(4), 274-282.
Stevenson, W.J. (2018). Operations and management. Thirteenth edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education.
Tadia, V., Gupta, S., Arya, S., Lathwal, A., Jain, K., & Ahlawat, R. (2016). Why switch to rental? Costing of laundry services at an Apex Tertiary Care Hospital from the view of outsourcing based on rental linen management services. International Journal of Research Foundation of Hospital and Health Care Administration, 4(2), 79-88.