MINOZ monitors the health status of hospitals
09 Oct 2008Telehealth, cross-border healthcare, collaboration between hospitals, ethical conflicts - these are just some of the tricky issues facing hospital managers these days. MINOZ, Vlerick’s Research Centre for Hospital Management, keeps its finger on the pulse of these trends and makes recommendations. Together with a network of hospitals, the Centre is all set to embark on a new three-year programme in 2009. Time for a diagnosis.
Developments
Even though hospitals are non-profit organisations, they still strive to be highly professional and innovative. Changes in healthcare are happening all the time, with different issues constantly cropping up. Lieven De Raedt, researcher at MINOZ: “Twenty years ago international healthcare didn’t even exist. Nowadays, more and more foreign patients are seeking treatment in Belgian hospitals and healthcare is regarded as an export product. Ten years ago home and community care wasn't on the horizon either. With the advancement of technology, we’re now looking at how patients can be monitored at home via telehealth. Amidst all these different developments, quality management naturally continues to be a key priority so as to guarantee optimum patient care.”
Research and consultation
MINOZ brings together the various management disciplines in hospitals, draws up a work agenda in consultation with the hospitals involved in the Centre as research partners and disseminates knowledge via workshops and training courses. Filip Goeman, Product Manager: “Every year we organise three workshops that are always preceded by several months of research. The topics for the forthcoming workshops haven’t been decided yet, but hospitals are expressing a great deal of interest in assessing and optimising patient flow through the hospital and in taking a close look at productivity in healthcare; there is also demand for more information about health operations management.” The research receives financial backing not only from the hospitals that are members of MINOZ, but also from companies involved in a sponsorship capacity.
Management for hospital physicians
Besides conducting research, MINOZ provides management training for hospital physicians. More than 350 doctors have completed general management and financial management programmes at Vlerick. To cope with the demand for advanced training, MINOZ will be launching “Capita Selecta” in October of this year, a mixture of “hard” and “soft” management topics to keep hospital physicians abreast of the latest developments. Spread over four modules, the programme will cover subjects such as organisational change in hospitals, quality management and patient safety, process management and negotiating techniques, and conflict management.
Management for healthcare institutions
Once a year MINOZ organises a Healthcare Management Day for personnel in the hospital and elderly care sectors and for government agencies operating within these sectors. The focus is on broad-based topics. The last Healthcare Management Day, for example, centred on the theme of motivating personnel in the healthcare sector and the next one will concentrate on innovation in hospitals and care facilities for the elderly.
‘Thanks to research centres like MINOZ, we’re one of the leaders in the sector’
The Virga Jesse Hospital in Hasselt, Belgium, has been a MINOZ research partner since 1997. Chief Executive Yves Breysem explains why: “Our partnership with MINOZ is based on three key elements. First of all, it’s important to evaluate hospital policy in the light of scientific research results. We also need to keep our finger on the pulse of new ideas and developments in healthcare worldwide and then apply them to the Flemish situation. Thanks to research centres like MINOZ, we’re one of the leaders in the sector. Lastly, networking with other hospitals is a useful way of benchmarking our position and the developments taking place in our hospital. Our sector is facing a great many new challenges. We have to keep a close eye on technological advances, but at the same time make choices. The high cost of new technology means, for instance, that a hospital has to weigh up whether a partnership with other hospitals might not be a more effective way of saving money, offering a better option for both the hospital and the patient. Hospitals are becoming increasingly professional in their approach, with the introduction of management principles and conceptual frameworks, so we’ve been investing in management training for hospital physicians for some considerable time now. Some doctors are doing a course in hospital management or financial management or an MBA at Vlerick.”
Info
Filip Goeman
Tel.: + 32 9 210 98 08
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