Reengineering management in health organizations

The economic, political and social environment is changing dramatically, and business in health organizations (HOs) is adapting to this change. The adaptation to this change is the main problem we try to solve by applying business process reengineering (BPR) techniques to the examined organizations. The basic technologies should be combined in software applications: relational database management systems, SQL database applications, telemedicine, etc., which are the tools for supporting patient care, etc. Moreover, the future trend of the whole "biomedical corporation business sector" is to consider making hospitals think about outsourcing, staff hierarchy flattening, benchmarking and BPR. All these can easily be put into place when there is a more centralized biomedical structured corporation. Taking into consideration all of this, total quality management can be easily implemented, making it possible for the organizations to develop an appropriate strategic plan for themselves. The results from experience gained from the application of BPR in the Athens Medical Centre (an acute hospital in Greece) and the Teddington Memorial Hospital in the UK is presented.