Exam Questions Ch1 Operations Management And Decision Making

Chapter 1: Operations Management and Decision Making

True or False Questions

1. True or False? Health care operations is about management of interconnected processes, or systems.
   1. True
   2. False
2. Inputs to production of health care services include labor and capital, including cash, technology, personnel, space, equipment, and information.
   1. True
   2. False
3. The healthcare industry has been a leader in the United States in demonstrating how best to manage the processes and systems required to produce patient care services.
   1. True
   2. False
4. Finding waste, improving utilization, and generally stabilizing and reducing the overall cost of delivering services are essential functions for a healthcare manager.
   1. True
   2. False
5. The healthcare industry has a great deal of parallel with airlines in terms of how business processes can be managed quickly and efficiently.
   1. True
   2. False
6. Clinical, financial, and other goals for a healthcare organization are clear, with little ambiguity.
   1. True
   2. False
7. Evidence-based healthcare can be applied in logistics and operations in a healthcare organization.
   1. True
   2. False

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which of the following is not an input to the production of healthcare services?
   1. Labor
   2. Supplies
   3. Outpatient visits
   4. Technology
2. Which of the following is a key function or issue in healthcare operations management?
   1. Supply chain and logistics management
   2. Maximizing investment of idle cash
   3. Developing methods to accelerate depreciation to reduce operating margins
   4. None of these is a key function or issue in healthcare operations management
3. The goals for operations managers in a hospital include:
   1. Increase variability
   2. Reduce costs
   3. Increase space used for inventories
   4. All of these are goals for hospital operations managers
4. Hospitals can learn about operations management effectiveness from which of these industries?
   1. Retail
   2. Chemicals
   3. Electronics
   4. All of these are industries that can inform hospital operations managers
5. Which of the following is a consideration for operations management in assessment of workflow process?
   1. Are floor layouts designed to eliminate redundancy?
   2. Where should appropriate par locations be positioned?
   3. How many manual processes exist?
   4. Should we operate “just in time”?
6. The most dominant parties in the production of health care are:
   1. Insurers
   2. Nurses
   3. Government regulators
   4. Physicians
7. The role of technology in a production function is:
   1. Automate manual processes
   2. Increase human oversight of transactions
   3. Reduce the speed of production to increase quality
   4. Diversify the types of output to increase marketability
8. Describe the scientific school of management and how it can be applied to healthcare operations management
9. How do the characteristics of a healthcare organization influence decision making in these types of organizations?

• Goals are unclear. There are clinical goals, financial goals, educational or academic goals in some cases, societal goals, community goals, and so on. The ambiguity that exists in terms of priorities and focus makes goals much less acute than in other industries.
• Organizations are complex. In industrial organizations, the organization is focused clearly on the key aspects of buying, making, selling, and moving products to the marketplace. In health care, reporting relationships often involve complex matrices and dual-reporting structures. This is definitely not the “command and control” structure, focused on speed and efficiency of decision-making that might work in other places.
• Relationships are ambiguous. Many business units in health care are interconnected, but they often behave as if they were not. Indepen­dence of departments and providers helps create an environment that is less team focused than in other industries, making relationships important for purposes of mutual support as allies. Also there are continuous power struggles in the healthcare arena between different factions of employees. This creates ambiguity in decision-making.

1. List some current trends in healthcare operations management and their importance to hospitals.
2. Describe the four key functions of management and give an example of how they can be implemented to enhance management control.