Strategy deployment in healthcare services: A case study approach

For a number of years, multiple studies have suggested that the effective management of logistics can generate significant gains for healthcare institutions. Yet, the studies also show that despite widespread knowledge of best practices, most institutions struggle to deploy practices that can enhance the logistics performance of their organization. In fact, healthcare institution managers are lacking guidelines enabling them to deploy a logistics strategy supporting the implementation of such practices. Using longitudinal case studies of two Canadian hospitals that made significant improvements in this regard, we will analyze the deployment strategy for exemplary materials management practices. In these studies, we will consider that two aspects are essential in deploying a logistics strategy in a service undertaking. First, there must be well-defined strategic intent. Based on this, the organization must implement an experimental series of logistics practices. This implementation process offers two benefits: 1) it should enable innovative practices to be tested, and 2) it should provide the organization with the time to absorb these innovations, particularly given the complex environment within a hospital.