Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing Essay

Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing
Housekeeping, Communications, Laundry, and Facilities Maintenance in Hospitals
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Advantages and Disadvantages of Outsourcing
Housekeeping, Communications, Laundry, and Facilities Maintenance in Hospitals
As hospitals struggle to increase revenues, outsourcing makes a powerful promise to hospital administrators: "save money, improve service and reduce the hassle" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Williams", "given" : "Jill Schlabig", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "4", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2004" ] ] }, "page" : "274-81", "title" : "The pros and cons of outsourcing: which way should you go?", "type" : "article-journal", "volume" : "38" }, "locator" : "274", "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=1cd0216d-86ce-4a92-b73f-0773f8752eb4" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Williams, 2004, p. 274)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Williams, 2004, p. 274)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Williams, 2004, p. 274)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Williams, 2004, p. 274). Some researches ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Sunseri", "given" : "R.", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "Hospitals & Health Networks", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "10", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "1999" ] ] }, "page" : "46,48,50", "title" : "Outsourcing on the outs", "type" : "article-journal", "volume" : "73" }, "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=75d1ada9-b7c7-40a7-88e1-a2b7bb3f283e" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Sunseri, 1999)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Sunseri, 1999)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Sunseri, 1999)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Sunseri, 1999) have shown that outsourcing patient services are too important to be outsourced. Hence, to prevent any problems in service delivery, most hospitals have limited outsourcing to housekeeping, security, laundry, and other non-core services. The question is: does outsourcing these services truly have no negative impact on service delivery?
Advantages
Perhaps the most important allure of outsourcing its promise of savings. Money saved from hospital maintenance can now be channeled towards hiring and training of staffs, purchase of important equipment and tools and refurbishing of hospital facilities. Ray Zambuto expounds on this benefit: "Small to medium-sized hospitals are looking for compliance with regulations, a fixed price or guaranteed budget, and one number to call for service – all benefits of outsourcing" ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Williams", "given" : "Jill Schlabig", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "4", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2004" ] ] }, "page" : "274-81", "title" : "The pros and cons of outsourcing: which way should you go?", "type" : "article-journal", "volume" : "38" }, "locator" : "275", "uris" : [ "/documents/?uuid=1cd0216d-86ce-4a92-b73f-0773f8752eb4" ] } ], "mendeley" : { "formattedCitation" : "(Williams, 2004, p. 275)", "plainTextFormattedCitation" : "(Williams, 2004, p. 275)", "previouslyFormattedCitation" : "(Williams, 2004, p. 275)" }, "properties" : { "noteIndex" : 0 }, "schema" : "https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json" }(Williams, 2004, p. 275).
The second important benefit of outsourcing is specialization. Facilities maintenance, while a non-core service, is important because it can impact service delivery. Unclean toilets, unlaundered hotel sheets, incorrectly disposed hospital refuse can lead to spread of diseases and is a violation of health care regulations. If the hospital trained specific staff for these roles, it would take away precious resources from the organization, not to mention the fact that the hospital may not have the capacity to instruct its maintenance personnel. Outsourcing enables healthcare organizations to focus on core competencies and to spend more time on more important roles ADDIN CSL_CITATION { "citationItems" : [ { "id" : "ITEM-1", "itemData" : { "author" : [ { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Hazelwood", "given" : "SE", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" }, { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Hazelwood", "given" : "AC", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" }, { "dropping-particle" : "", "family" : "Cook", "given" : "ED", "non-dropping-particle" : "", "parse-names" : false, "suffix" : "" } ], "container-title" : "Healthcare Financial Management", "id" : "ITEM-1", "issue" : "10", "issued" : { "date-parts" : [ [ "2005" ] ] }, "page"...