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Shouldice Hospital Case

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1. How successful is the Shouldice Hospital?

Process:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Steady state scenario
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday
30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 29 29 29 29
Table 1

Shouldice hospital is currently only focussed on hernia operations. Their USP is their focus on early ambulation. They also put more emphasis on post-operative care for 2-3 days offering accommodation. Other hospitals do not focus on early ambulation or accommodation after operation. This gives Shouldice a competitive advantage.
The procedure is well defined and structured. As it is mentioned in the case, change in procedure usually requires the chief surgeon to be present to look after the proceedings. This fixed procedure ensured that the primary operations got over in 45 mins, and minimal chances of secondary operations on Shouldice operated cases. The secondary operations also take about 90 mins.
The number of operations performed by a typical general surgeon is 25-30 per year whereas the surgeons at Shouldice perform 750 operations per year. They are well paid and looked after with a profit sharing plan, and this applies to even the administrative staff along with nurses and surgeons.
Some features:
Infrastructure - A 17,000 square foot main building on a 130 acre estate with 89 beds for patients with 7600 operations performed per year as of 2004
Theoretical Capacity of operations = [(30+30+29)/3] *5*52 = 7713.33 = 7713 operations per year
Total backlog of 2400 patients, increasing by 100 patients every 6 months.
Shouldice Hospital is quite successful currently. We can analyse success in terms of measures like Profitability and Capacity utilization.
Profitability:
Average revenue = 1930*0.8 + 2230*0.2 = $2170/patient
Operating Costs

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