Improving resource capacity planning in hospitals with business approaches.

This dissertation contributed to the knowledge on the translation of approaches from businesses and services to improve the resource capacity planning on tactical and operational level in (oncologic) hospital care. The following studies were presented: * Chapter 2 surveyed the business approaches and tools that Dutch hospitals applied to improve resource capacity planning, and analyzed the results the hospitals claimed to have achieved. * Chapter 3 explored the application of the focused factory concept in four multiple case studies, by examining the degree of focus, the organizational context, and the operational performance. * Chapter 4 dealt with the feasibility, the process and the success factors of international (comprehensive) benchmarking in specialty hospitals and specialized cancer centres. * Chapter 5 examined how a combination of benchmarking and lean management can enable considerable patient growth in a chemotherapy day unit without adding proportionally staff, while sustaining current quality and patient satisfaction levels. * Chapter 6 examined the relation between simulation and the implementation of recommendations with a literature review and a survey to the authors included in the literature review. * Chapter 7 examined the use of computer simulation to reduce the time between the CT request and the consult in which the CT report is discussed while maintaining an acceptable idle time and overtime of the CT. Effects of the intervention were evaluated using a before-and-after design. All examined business approaches may contribute to the improvement of resource capacity planning. The recommendations were mainly context specific while applied and developed seem to be generally applicable. Critical factors to implement the approaches successfully were identified.