New Way to Be \'Lovin\'

¶ … new way to be 'Lovin' it' at McDonald's and Patient-Focused Hospitals

To improve consumer relationships and gain an advantage over its competitors, a company may address any or all of the following areas: process design, distribution channels, branding, advertising strategies, or simply change the product that is offered. Because both companies provide such different services, it might be assumed that hospitals and McDonald's would adopt very different strategies in all of these areas when dealing with organizational waste. After all, McDonald's sells artery-clogging burgers while hospitals are responsible for the lives of well-being of their patients. Furthermore, McDonald's is a commercial venture, offering a service that consumers expect to be consumed quickly and easily, while patients expect more personalized attention from organizations such as hospitals. However, when reforming problematic and costly lags in providing care for their core consumers, both McDonald's and hospitals have come to a similar discovery. Both have found that placing consumers in the driver's seats, and making individual needs, rather than predetermined standard operating procedures the most important aspect of the organization's method of service, can be the most effective way to implement change.

McDonald's has long ruled supreme as the 'king' of the fast food industry (with all due respect to number 2, Burger King) and 'king' of the quick, tasty burger. It is virtually synonymous with the fast food industry itself. However, with changes in demand for different types of cuisine "McDonald's original, much-vaunted food-prep system eventually broke down" (McGinn 2001). Originally, McDonald's speed depended upon swift, accurate analysis of when customers desired its product in different areas, and at different times of the day. The burgers would be pre-assembled with a particular level of demand expected at that moment in time, and then the burgers would be kept warm under heated lamps. Unfortunately, the burgers began to get cold, as demand grew more difficult to predict, and McDonald's menu grew more complex to respond to competitor's varied offerings and a demand for a (slightly) healthier selections. Before, McDonald's had perfected the 'push' model of process design, whereby benchmarks predetermined productivity goals, but now this was problematic.

Furthermore, given McDonald's branding, where its sameness was a virtue, customers receiving food of questionable quality was not simply irritating, but it flew in the face of the draw of fast food, which was that a burger sold in one area of the country or the world would taste the same as the same burger anywhere else. But consumer tastes had changed, while the appetite for speed and sameness remained. "The reliance on forecasting also made it difficult to add menu items -- burgers with bacon or new chicken sandwiches -- because new menu choices made historical data useless. Another problem: Because the burgers were doused with toppings before customers ordered them, anyone who wanted to deviate from the standard fixings had to place a special order, which took an aeon. The food itself suffered, too. Even when burgers didn't get cold, the heat lamps withered such ingredients as lettuce and tomatoes" (McGinn, 2001). Different market tastes in different areas of the country made distribution more complex, and customization was a greater necessity than before.

Thus, McDonald's learned from its competition, and created a made-to-order system, whereby sandwich ingredients were assembled, but sandwiches were not prepared until an order was actually submitted by a customer. This allowed for more product variation and prevented declines in quality during the day, and it also allowed for more flexibility in different markets. The food did not rest for long periods of time, and because consumer customization was expected, the time to service an individual customer actually decreased, rather than increased. Thus McDonald's shifted to a 'pull' system, originally perfected by Burger King, the architects of the slogan that the chain would do it 'your way,' as opposed to the more generic, family-focused advertising of McDonald. Of course, McDonald's was quiet about its adoption of its rival's processing innovation. McDonald's might argue that in terms of its philosophy, essentially, McDonald's was putting its customers first and viewing them individual customers rather than as projected statistics plotted on a demand curve.

This philosophy is at the heart of patient-focused care, a recent strategy adopted by many hospitals in response to criticism of the healthcare system as unnecessarily faceless and bureaucratic. One example of patient-focused care is how, in the distribution of healthcare to different patients, hospitals may adopt point-of-care treatment for critically ill patients, to minimize moving these patients around. This improves patient care yet also is more cost-effective in the long run. "Patient-focused care (PFC) or patient-centered care is a model chosen by many hospital CEOs in attempts to compete. PFC is a means for decreasing the cost of providing health care while improving the quality of health care services. Its principles flow from those of TQM/CQI, bringing patient care needs as close to the bedside as possible. In doing so, according to the logic of PFC, the number of workers needed to provide the care decreases and the time nurses have available to spend with patients increases. Therefore, the cost of care goes down while the quality of care goes up" (Myers 1998:1).