Written Analysis and Communication (WAC) Report

PACADI Analysis

On

American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC).

Submitted to:
Prof. Debjani Sarkar

Submitted by:
Arjun Kumar (045012)
BDA-04
Section H
INTRODUCTION:

AUBMC, a not-for-profit teaching hospital and the Medical Center of the Faculty of
Medicine for the American University of Beirut (AUB), has been providing cutting edge
medical care services to patients in Lebanon and other countries worldwide for many
generations. It has always played a major role in shaping and improving healthcare in
the country.

The medical center began 145 years ago in a small rented building in Zokak El-Blat in
Beirut, home to the first classes of the School of Medicine, which was established by
the Syrian Protestant College (later known as AUB).

Today, AUBMC is the first medical institution in the Middle East to have earned five
international accreditations of Joint Commission International (JCI), Magnet, College of
American Pathologists (CAP), Joint Accreditation Committee for EBMT and ISCT Europe
(JACIE), and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education - International
(ACGME-I) attesting to its superior standards in patient-centered care, nursing,
pathology/laboratory services, and graduate medical education. AUBMC’s impact on
the medical sector and on improving people’s lives is without equal in the Arab world.

The AUB Medical Center case study is a fascinating example of how a struggling
hospital attempted to overcome significant challenges and emerge as a leader in its
region. The case highlights the importance of strong leadership, a clear vision, and a
well-defined strategic plan. Despite facing numerous obstacles, AUBMC made
significant progress towards its goals by focusing on clinical excellence, research and
education, technology and infrastructure, patient-centered care, financial
sustainability, and community engagement. However, the case study also raises
important questions about the future of healthcare in the Middle East and North
Africa.
PROBLEMS:
The problem statement defines the major problems identified in the case that needs to
be addressed with utmost priority to ensure the smooth functioning of the
organization. In AUBMC apart from facing the challenges from the external forces like
political instability, war, etc., it also faces some issues like:

I. Unorganized and Unmotivated Employees:

AUBMC has poor working conditions with toxic working relations between nurses and
doctors. The employees were not motivated to work their fullest capacity as they are
just coming to the organization for the completion of their task only. AUBMC lacks a
proper hierarchy, leading to wastage of time and resources. Employees are not
encouraged to participate in decision making as a result they are lacking the
motivation.

II. Operational Deficiency:

Resources are not fully utilized in the organization and no one is held accountable for
the resource waste. Also, there is no proper allocation of work among departments as
the Communication department is handling all the marketing activities. Moreover,
there is no proper allocation of employees among departments as some departments
have more than required employees while others do not have adequate staff. As a
result, there is chaos created in the organization which is hampering the efficiency of
the organization. Moreover, it took a debt of $700,000 million and long waiting times
have added to the miseries of the management.

III. Lack of proper Communication:

There is toxic relation between doctors and nurses with no proper communication
between them. Moreover, there is a lack of courtesy on the part of nurses to the
patient’s request as they are unempathetic and arrogant towards patients due to
which patients’ satisfaction level decreases. All this is harming the reputation of
AUBMC.

IV. Intense competiton:

As mentioned in the case, AUBMC also faces intense competition from esteemed
organizations in terms of longevity, high class services, premium infrastructure etc.

While the problems are several in number, the most severe one which can be
considered the problem statement is: How can AUB medical center improve and
expand its operations and create a better and sustainable brand image for itself in
the minds of people of Lebanon.

ALTERNATIVES:

1. Patient centric approach-

Patients are the end users of organization’s services & hence their satisfaction must be
of utmost priority. Actions should be taken to improve services by the doctors, nurses
and the administration. Staff should be active and work on responding to long queues
and improve overall patient satisfaction. For example, it can implement a patient
feedback system to gather insights on their experiences, allowing for targeted
improvements in services. And for addressing long queues it can introduce online
appointment systems and optimizing scheduling to reduce wait times and enhance
overall patient experience.

2. Resource utilization-

As we notice that in AUBMC, the resource wastage is in excess as compared to all other
American institutions, where Dr. Sayegh was working. It is a serious issue here. Policies
must be made regarding resource usage. There should be proper guidelines and
punishment, if not followed. Also, a person should be assigned to monitor this and who
will be held accountable. All the staff must be made aware of their responsibilities
towards saving resources and which will ultimately improve operational efficiency and
productivity. This will reduce unnecessary expenditure and reduce costs.

AUBMC can adopt the following measures for effective utilization of its resources.
Reducing Resource Wastage:

Implementing recycling and sustainability programs to minimize paper and energy

waste in administrative processes.

Accountability and Monitoring:

Appointing a resource manager responsible for tracking and optimizing the use of
medical equipment, ensuring efficient allocation.

3. Training & Motivation-

Employees must be trained in order to perform their duties up to full potential &
effectively. They are currently of the attitude that profitability doesn’t matter as they
are working for a not for profit organization. But, they should be motivated for their
and the organization’s betterment. Also, they should be satisfied with their salary and
perks. Organizations should maintain a proper balance and allocate staff in all the
departments after proper analysis. The structure of the organization needs to be
decentralized in order to give the employee more room to be creative and take
responsibilities. This will help in effective patient interactions and would lead to
development of skills of the employees.

For ensuring training and motivation among employees AUBMC can do the following:

Employee Training:

Conducting regular workshops on effective communication and patient care, equipping

staff with the necessary skills to excel in their roles.

Salary and Perks Satisfaction:

Conducting salary surveys to ensure compensation is competitive and offering

performance-based bonuses to motivate employees.

4. Reduce scale of operations to focus internally and eliminate inconsistencies-

There should be proper communication and coordination among doctors and nurses to
avoid any kind of chaos and confusion. Better integration leads to better results and
efficiency. The administration should make aware and encourage employees to
maintain the same. Seminars and various activities could be organized to initiate and
develop coordination. Better coordination will lead to better flow of operational
activities.

These are some of the ways in which AUBMC can eliminate inconsistencies:

Communication and Coordination:

Implementing regular inter-departmental meetings and utilizing digital platforms for

seamless communication between doctors, nurses, and administrative staff.

Employee Awareness:

Organizing team-building events, seminars, and workshops focused on the importance

of collaboration, with success stories shared to inspire a sense of unity.

CRITERIA:

In the ascending order of importance, we have set forth our criteria:

1. Improve the brand image of the hospital. (weightage-1)

2. Provide hospital with a competitive edge. (weightage-2)
3. Provide better services to patients. (weightage-3)
4. Reduce the budget deficits. (weightage-4)
5. Expanding and improving operations. (weightage-5)

ANALYSIS:

The weightage of all criteria is mentioned in the brackets.

Scores for each alternative is out of 10.

The score is calculated by multiplying the weights with each individual scores for every
alternative and summing it up, we get our scores.

Alternatives/Criteria Brand Competitive Better Reducing Expanding Score

Image Edge Services budget and
(1) (2) (3) deficits improving
(4) operations
(5)
Alternative 1: 8 9 9 5 8 113*
Patient centric
approach
Alternative 2: 6 7 7 9 6 107*
Resource Utilisation
Alternative 3: 8 8 9 7 10 128*
Training,
development and
motivation
Alternative 4: 6 7 9 7 9 123*
Reduce scale of
operations,
inconsistencies

*The score is reached by multiplying weight with score obtained. For eg: for alternative
1 – the score is calculated by: 8x1 + 9x2 + 9x3 + 5x4 + 8x5 = 113, and similarly for the
rest.

DECISION:

Based on the analysis, we can conclude that the best solution to the problem is
alternative 3 i.e. training, development and motivation closely followed by reducing
scale of operations and inconsistencies. This will include undertaking a hospital wide
training and development program to nurture the skills of staff members especially in
patient interactions leading to patient centric approach.

This solution will result in:

1. Enable staff of AUBMC to provide good quality services to patients.

2. Improve internal as well as external communication of staff members
3. Provide a better brand image in the minds of the patients, both existing and the new
patients would want to enrol themselves for check-ups, etc.
4. This will also help to reduce the intense competition (one of the initial problems faced
by AUBMC) to a certain extent efficiently.
5. This will help to solve the problem statement by improving its overall functioning and
day to day operations.

IMPLEMENTATION:

A number of steps can be taken to implement the decisions taken earlier some of these
can be:

1. Mr. Sayegh can approach instructors to hold training sessions from renowned
universities like Harvard, Princeton, Chicago Booth, etc and other places to train their
employees.

2. Provide courses to employees internally in the form of simulations like how they
should encounter upcoming patients.

3. Collecting feedbacks from patients to assess them and monitor their performances
on a monthly and weekly basis.

4. Setting up LMS (Learning management systems) modules to provide refresher courses

to workers and upskilling them.

Now, just stating what to implement will not work, we should also provide timelines so
that the plans do get implemented by having a schedule in mind.

Approximately in 1-2 weeks, Mr. Sayegh should start on boarding instructors for training
the employees, as soon the work starts the better it would be.

Simultaneously courses would be provided depending on the employee skill levels. The
ones who need more skills and scope for improvement will get basic courses first and
the others will start with intermediary gradually progressing over a months’ time.
After the training sessions get over after 3-4 months, then the work training will begin.

After another month, feedback forms will be collected from patients to assess the
employee improvements.

PROJECTED COSTS:

For implementing these solutions, the company will need to take care of some costs.
These include:

1. Travel and logistics

2. Instructor fees
3. Cost incurred during training
4. IT expenditure for learning management systems and other technologies which the
hospital may implement.

CONTINGENCY PLAN:

In case, our solution does not generate effective results over time, then we need to
choose the next best alternative which is reduce scale of operations and inconsistencies.
This can lead to reduced overhead costs, fewer resources and lower energy
consumption. It will allow for better quality control and attention to detail, thus helpful
in maintaining high standards while managing at a small scale.

It will allow greater flexibility and better risk management by mitigating risks while
ensuring customer satisfaction. This will also lead to a customer centric approach and
effective resource utilisation, our next best alternatives.

So as a backup plan, alternate 4 will be the best option to choose.