Strengths and weaknesses of Eastside Dental Clinic's operations

Quality health care is an essential requirement of any human being. In current times, where the fast paced lives are getting faster each day, work stresses are increasing, streets are being storm with junk foods and fast foods, and pollution and congestion is increasing, human lives are getting more and more prone to physical and mental diseases. As a result, the importance of health care systems and health care facilities increases.

Dental care is an important branch of health care services. This is one health care service that has a very high demand on routine basis. Moreover, dental care is also a very expensive facility that many people cannot afford. The current economic crunch has made it much more difficult for people to go for routine dental checkups and use dental care facility. This calls for a need of nonprofit organization, preferably state funded, that can provide dental care facilities at affordable prices (Kovener & Knickman, 2005). The problems pertaining to dental care are much more common among children, mainly due to their lack of awareness about dental care and unhealthy eating practices.

Non-profit organizations are those that operate with charitable objectives and their aim is not maximization of profits unlike other organizations their main aim is not to make profits but to increase the welfare of society. The share holders or trustees of Nonprofit Organizations do not expect financial returns from the organization. Almost all of the nonprofit organizations are exempt from income tax and most are also exempted from sales and state and local property taxes. The nonprofit sector is also called the third sector, independent sector, voluntary sector, tax exempt sector, social sector or the charitable sector. Approximately 1.2 million Organizations are registered with the IRS and a large number of small nonprofit organizations remain unregistered because they have revenue of less than $5,000 (Wall, 1996).

The existence of nonprofit organizations is of great importance. Nonprofit organizations react to a community needs not being satisfied by private organizations that operate with a profit motive. Nonprofit organizations are more efficient than government and can address the issues urgently. Nonprofit organizations play a major role when a country is hit by a natural disaster; this is especially the case in developing nations. Nonprofit organizations provide a platform for individuals to change the community they live in and make it a better place. Nonprofit organizations identify major societal issues and give voice to under-represented people and points-of-view and integrate these perspectives into social life. Nonprofit organizations develop a sense of community among citizens by providing a means to engage in social welfare.

Organization overview

Eastside Dental clinic is a non-profit organization funded by the state of Virginia. The clinic specializes in treating children. Medicare and Medicaid are the only insurances accepted at the Eastside Dental clinic (Grogan & Gusmano, 1999). The Clinic is currently unable to breakeven due to understaffing and competition faced by Kool smiles, which has captured the market of Eastside Dental clinic as it also serves children and accepts Medicaid as one of their insurances. The staff at the clinic is not motivated and refuses to do any extra work. The clinic treats 8-10 patients a day on average from Monday-Thursday and 4 patients on Friday. The Eastside dental clinic is located inside a city public healthcare clinic towards the back of the building. The problem of understaffing in the clinic is escalated due to disconnect between the front desk and the dental office.

SWOT Analysis

The strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by the Eastside clinic given the current circumstances are discussed in the following sections.

Strengths

The major strength of the Eastside dental clinic is that it is funded by the state of Virginia; therefore the dental clinic can charge lower prices to attract patients.

Unlike privately run nonprofit organizations, government will have a larger budget to fund charitable provision of dental care services, which will give it an edge over its competitors.

Those patients who cannot afford to get themselves insured for health benefits can get treatment from the Eastside dental clinic for free based on a sliding scale (Vissers & Beech, 2005). These patients will not be provided treatment by other dental clinic such as Kool smith; this gives Eastside dental clinic a competitive edge.

The variable costs of the Eastside dental clinic because the labor force only consists of a doctor, a hygienist and a dental assistant.

Weaknesses

The Eastside Dental clinic is under staffed. There is no receptionist to take appointments and do billing due to which Dr. Mulligan and her staff have to do these tasks between the patients as a result they can treat very few patients because many of the appointment calls are missed and on Friday Dr. Mulligan can treat only 4 patients on average as he have to do the billing leading to a fall in revenue for the clinic. Furthermore, due to understaffing the staff at the dental clinic is too busy and has no time to promote their clinic and educate people about the importance of dental care which could result in a significant increase in the number of patients receiving the Eastside dental clinic. These tasks can also be done through using dental mobile vans but due to under staffing these vans are of no use and are depreciating leading to under utilization of resources.

Eastside Dental clinic only accepts Medicaid and Medicare insurances as a result those patients who have any other type of insurances will not go to Eastside dental clinic and might opt for kool smith or any other clinic in the town.

The front desk is responsible for helping the dental office; however, there is lack of communication between the front desk and the dental office. The front desk is not cooperative and refuses to do any extra work and does not participate in helping the dental office as a result the clinic is able to treat only few patients.

The Eastside Dental clinic does not treat adults regularly as a result its market is limited. The main focus of the clinic remains on providing dental care services to children only. Adults would prefer a dental clinic which is ready to see them at anytime they want and as a result might not go to Eastside even occasionally. They would also prefer to get their children treatment by the dentist that they themselves go to.

Threats

If staffing of more employees is not able to attract more patients to the clinic then the clinic would make a greater loss than it is currently making.

Kool Smiles being a profit making organization might be more efficient and have a more cooperative and friendly staff which can attract Eastside clinic patients towards them.

Promotions through dental vehicles would lead to extra costs such as repairmen of vehicles and fuel costs for which the clinic might not have funds.

The clinic might not have enough funds to employee more people

Alternating sites

Currently, Dr. Mulligan has chosen to alternate sites, under which he visits four days a week at Eastside clinic while 1 day every week at the Westside clinic. The staff of Westside clinic is much friendlier as compared to its former counterpart and there is more communication between the front desk and the dentist.

Strengths

The fact that Dr. Mulligan gets a more cooperative team to work with and a more comfortable environment to work in will keep him motivated in his practice and it will be easier to get off the exhaustion that might be felt due to extensive pressures at the Eastside clinic. This is because, if Dr. Mulligan, who happens to be the key person in supervising the operations of the Eastside clinic is overworked or stressed out, the quality of health care service that he will be providing to the patients will be compromised regardless of how well qualified and experienced a dentist he is.

A well cooperative team at the Westside clinic can help him learn the ways of how team can be kept motivated which he can apply on his team at the Eastside clinic which seems to be unmotivated to participate in the operations of the clinic. Since Westside clinic seems to be working with greater efficiency as compared to Eastside clinic, Dr. Mulligan can use his practice at Westside as a learning forum and can apply his newfound knowledge to bring operative improvements at the less efficient East Side clinic.

Weaknesses

Paying only once a week visit at the Westside clinic would mean that Dr. Mulligan might not be able to take full advantage of the opportunities provided at the Westside clinic. This is because, most part of the week is being spent in a more stressful environment at the Eastside clinic. Therefore increasing the number of visits per week to twice a week will enable Dr. Mulligan to spend more time in a healthier work environment.

Visiting the Westside Clinic only once a week would also mean that the doctor is not being able to give ample time to patients at the other side of the town. This will also make the Westside clinic less marketable, despite of the efficient health care services that it provides.

Opportunities

The fact that the standard of healthcare services provided at the Westside clinic is much higher than the Eastside clinic whilst the key figure, that is Dr. Mulligan, remains the same, can allow Dr. Mulligan to use his practice at the Westside clinic to promote the Eastside clinic. This can be done by informing patients at Westside Clinic about the existence of and facilities available at the Eastside clinic.

Threats

Since Dr. Mulligan would find it easier to work at the Westside Clinic given a more cooperative team, he might get dissatisfied and unmotivated, thus resulting a further deterioration in the quality of services provided at the Westside clinic.

Recommendations

While the direct problem of The Eastside Clinic seems to be accommodating wait listed patients, the earlier discussed analysis of root causes suggests that there are serious operational mismanagement that are implicating on the capacity management system of The Eastside Clinic. Therefore, in order to improve the current capacity and bring it up to the level of expected capacity, there are various changes that are needed to be maintained in the current manner in which The Eastside Clinic operates.

Since the organization is focused on providing dental care services and dental care results are an important part of process of carrying out medical examinations for various diseases, the success of business therefore lies in the efficiency with which the imaging service is provided. The key person responsible for carrying out the scans is therefore the dentist and hygienist who is overworked and stressed out which is affecting his efficiency and productivity. The Eastside Clinic should therefore extend the operating shift hours from an eight hour shift to a nine hour shift and should make a room to for break hours for the dentist and hygienist. The dentist and hygienist can use the break time to relax him and this can help him to gain back his momentum and increase his efficiency.

Secondly, mismanagement of scheduling department is also needed to be addressed. First of all The Eastside Clinic should convert all its scheduling tasks to a computerized schedule management system. Computerized schedule database management systems are easily available in the market and are not very costly. Making a computerized scheduling system will increase scheduling efficiency. The software must be designed to automatically identify number of free slots available to accommodate patients, day and time each patient is scheduled for a scan and the type of scan that each patient is required to be scan for. A copy each of the schedule form must be provided to both the patient and the dentist and hygienist so that chances of carrying out the wrong scan on the wrong patients can be eliminated.

In order to avoid last minute cancellation of appointment, patients must be asked to make a fifty percent advance payment at the time of making an appointment. The Eastside Clinic should fix a minimum time notice for cancellation of scheduled appointment. If a customer fails to cancel the appointment in that given time frame and cancels it afterwards or fails to show up as per the schedule then the advanced payment must be confiscated and must not be refunded. This can save the costs pertaining to capital wastages due to cancellation of last minute appointments.

The Eastside Clinic should also provide an online scheduling facility thorough the clinic's official website. Customers should be provided the services to view the available slots online and book their appointments online. They can also be provided online scan reports. This facility however can only be availed by patients who are computer literate and/or have an access to the internet.

After bringing in the proposed improvements in the capacity management system of The Eastside Clinic, if the clinic still has enough patients on the waitlist that justify the purchase of an additional equipment, then the Eastside Clinic must make employee extra hygienist and must consider replacing the existing front desk staff, if their productivity and efficiency does not show improvements (Simmers, 2004).

Monitor and Control

The proposed recommendations suggest the following action plan for the Eastside Clinic to make improvements in the capacity management.

The operational hours of the clinic must be increased an hour and room must be created to provide for break time to the dentist and hygienist.

Scheduling tasks must be made completely computerized.

Improvements in communication between patients and scheduling clerks must be improved.

Strict policy pertaining to cancellation of appointment must be maintained.

While the above mentioned recommendations are aimed at making improvements in the clinic's capacity, it will only be able to produce results if a strict check and balance is maintained. Since currently, the clerks are used to the manual recording method; they must be trained to use the computer software. They must also be trained and monitor about how do they deal with the patients who contact to make an appointment (Anhier, 2005). They must also be trained about the fact that they cannot schedule every patient on every available slot and patients with certain medical conditions are to be rejected.

The Eastside Clinic must create a benchmark and all employees must be evaluated for their performance and efficiency. This will highlight the fact whether there is really a problem with the capacity management or the employees deliberately follow a 'go slow' plan.

The Eastside Clinic is being torn apart in marketing by its competitors. In order for The Eastside Clinic to regain the lead in the dental care services industry a new marketing strategy should be developed. There is no single service of The Eastside Clinic, which is positioned in the market the way its competitor's products are. The Eastside Clinic should consider pursuing an informative marketing strategy, which focuses on creating awareness about the existence of the clinic and the services it provides.

With the current top down bureaucratic management structure, The Eastside Clinic will never become a leading innovator. The clinic should be more flexible with its bureaucracy. It should allow more decentralization as far as functional and regional departments are concerned. Functional decentralization and delegation of responsibility to lower levels will bring in more innovation and ideas and that will contribute to a more positive growth and progression for the clinic. Secondly, delegating responsibilities ahead to workers will motivate them, increase their job security and thus, will increase productivity

Conclusion

Given the current condition of economic recession, combined by increased need of provision of dental care services and inability of the masses to afford these services, the state of Virginia should continue to support Eastside Dental clinic. This is important because privately run nonprofit organizations are primarily dependent on donors, which restricts the funds available for such expensive treatments. Moreover, ensuring transparency in privately owned nonprofit organization is also an issue of major concern (Singh, & Shi, 2008). Considering the fact, dental care has a high routine demand, particularly in children, and the government has greater capability in terms of resources to support such an organization, the state of Virginia should continue to support the program. However, at the same time in order to ensure that the service is provided up to the mark and patients are satisfied, it is important that the clinic removes its inconsistencies, particularly those related to its human resources. It must be ensured that the human resource is neither overworked nor takes over stress and contributes to the organization to maximum productivity.