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Published online: 9 June 2016
© Indian Institute of Management Calcutta 2016
Abstract This study reviewed research papers on healthcare operations management from reputed operations management and service management journals from 2000. The literature review covered a total of 177 research papers on healthcare operations management. The objective of the literature review was to identify key dimensions of healthcare operations management, highlight the present trend in research on healthcare operations management, and suggest areas for future research. The literature review identified six major themes namely service quality, service operation strategy, information technology, service scheduling, service performance, and others elements (consists of five sub-themes). The study found that a large proportion of empirical studies in the area of healthcare operations management have been conducted in developed nations. This calls more research in developing and underdeveloped nations because the management challenges of healthcare industry in developing and underdeveloped nations are quite different from those in developed nations.
Keywords Healthcare operations management Service quality Service operations strategy Service scheduling Service performance
Introduction
It is estimated that medical accidents cause more deaths than road accidents, AIDS, and breast cancer put together (Kohn et al. 2000). In spite of the great importance of healthcare across economies (Ramanathan 2005; Gobbi and Hsuan 2015), it has been far less researched when compared to traditional operations management (OM) issues (Smith et al. 2007). As a result, researchers have been regularly encouraged to work on healthcare-related issues by both policy makers and service researchers alike (Berry and Bendapudi 2007; Ostrom et al. 2010).
Some of the healthcare OM requiring attention of researchers can be derived from large number of issues adversely affecting healthcare organisations such as long waiting times, diverted ambulance, patients lying on stretchers in hallways, overburdened and stressed medical staff, medical accidents, and in general a diminishing level of service at many healthcare centres (Steinke 2008; Tucker 2004). These issues provide huge learning opportunities for researchers and policy makers which if capitalised upon can result in organisational learning and higher productivity (Tucker 2004). Appropriate use of traditional OM concepts in healthcare has been found to be of great help in resolving some of the above-mentioned issues (LaGanga 2011; Graban 2009). Healthcare managers regularly use OM techniques to improve the quality of...
