Case Study 2.1 Healthy Business!
Healthcare systems around the world vary in terms of the mix of public sector and commercial operators
and the way in which medical care is structured. This structure and mix will continue to evolve as service
providers rethink their systems to achieve cost improvements, implement leaner operational processes
and use quality of medical care and patient experience as their point of differentiation. The expectation
is that resource-intensive, high-capital facilities such as large hospitals will function as centres of
excellence concentrated in geographic locations, supported by a network of smaller hospital and clinic
facilities operating a mixture of specialist, primary care and ancillary services (KPMG, 2013). Speciality
care offers advanced treatment of conditions such as cancer or heart disease; primary care is more
general (covering a broad range of physical, psychological and social conditions); while ancillary
treatment includes services such as outpatient surgery, diagnostic imaging and physiotherapy.
Whatever the scale and nature of medical provision within a healthcare system, organizations whose
central purpose is to provide medical treatment direct their attention at exactly that, i.e. their core
expertise, and (as with other sectors) outsource those activities to which they are unable to add value. In
the healthcare sector, outsourced activities can be split into clinical and non-clinical services and may
include the following:
1. Clinical services: radiology, pathology, dialysis, dentistry, physiotherapy and rehabilitation,
pharmacy;
2. Non-clinical services: cleaning, laundry, catering, patient transport, car-parking, on-site
retailing, facilities management, information and communications systems, purchasing.
(Guimarães and de Carvalho, 2010)
The scope and value of contracts that a medical facility awards to a specific supplier and the breadth of
services that providers might seek to supply to the healthcare sector can be quite varied. So, for example,
in the UK, healthcare trusts that are part of the NHS might use Medirest (www.medirest.co.uk), a
