Question

1. Which of the following is NOT a competitive priority of an operations strategy?

1. quality
2. cost
3. patient-centered care
4. timely delivery
5. flexibility

2. An obstetrician’s office decides to offer complimentary massage during routine office visits, but charges higher prices for these appointments. Which business strategy have they chosen?

a.          Prospector

b.         Analyzer

c.          Low cost defender

d.         Differentiated defender

e.          None of the above

3. Memorial Hospital is known as a leader in research and innovation. The hospital just announced that they are now offering a new heart valve procedure that can be performed on an outpatient basis. What is their business strategy?

a. Prospector

b. Analyzer

c. Low cost defender

d. Differentiated defender

e. None of the above

4. Accomplishing better patient outcomes (clinical and experiential) than your competition means competing on:

a. quality

b. service

c. delivery

d. cost

e. flexibility

5. The triple aim for the healthcare system includes improving the quality of care, improving the health of the population, and:

a. increasing insurers’ support of policies

b. lowering costs of quality healthcare for individuals, families, and employers

c. increasing access to primary care providers

d. reducing excess waste in the healthcare system.

e. reducing overuse of high cost emergency care

6. _______ improvements pave the ground for efficiency gains.

a. Quality

b. Flexibility

c. Delivery

d. Policy

e. Revenue

7. A healthcare system that offers free flu shots to all insured patients is meeting which strategic quality priority?

a. Safety

b. Patient and family engagement

c. Coordination of care

d. Effective prevention and treatment practices

e. Use of best practices

8. A clinic that utilizes nurse navigators to ensure patients are scheduled in a timely fashion for necessary appointments, understand their medications, and monitor their symptoms is succeeding at which strategic quality priority?

a. Safety

b. Patient and family engagement

c. Coordination of care

d. Effective prevention and treatment practices

e. Use of best practices

9. A matrix that depicts clear relationships between customer and process requirements is called:

a. Voice of Quality

b. Voice of Deployment

c. Voice of Process

d. House of Quality

e. House of Process Control

10. The process capability ratio compares the width of the process distribution with the range of the _________________ limits.

a. specification

b. control

c. standard deviation

d. attribute

e. variable

11. The upper and lower specification limits for a component are 0.150 cm and 0.120 cm, respectively. The process standard deviation is 0.003 cm, and the process average is 0.138 cm. What conclusion can be drawn?

a. The process is capable

b. The process average is out of statistical control

c. The process is not capable

d. The specifications should be changed to 0.141 and 0.135

e. The control limits should be changed

12. Changing the culture of an organization to a Lean culture:

a. usually happens very quickly

b. can take years to occur

c. requires specialized training of only a few key leaders or champions

d. is easier when senior leadership keeps its distance so that the frontline workers can be the expert problem solvers

e. requires staff dedicated only to Lean project implementation

13. When a patient in the intensive care unit (ICU) needs blood products, the nurse must call the blood bank and request that the blood be delivered directly to the patient’s room at that time. This is an example of:

a. a product storage system

b. waste in the system

c. a just-in-time inventory system

d. a push system

e. value stream mapping

14. A value stream map depicts:

a. activities that are valuable to the hospital

b. activities that are valuable to the customer

c. activities that are annoying to the customer

d. b and c are correct, but not a

e. a and b are correct, but not c

15. According to the text, if each step of a process has a high probability of functioning effectively for a given period of time, the process is said to be:

a. well designed

b. appropriate

c. reliable

d. a quality step

e. a high probability step

Answer 1

Which of the following is NOT a competitive priority of an operations strategy?

C. patient-centered care

Six area which act as competitive priorities are cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, customer focus and know-how. All the other 3 options are a part of these six areas except patient-centered care (also the question does not mention who the customers are / what the business is and hence we cannot conclude that patients are the customers, else customer focus i.e patient focus / patient centered care would have been the correct answer as well)

An obstetrician’s office decides to offer complimentary massage during routine office visits, but charges higher prices for these appointments. Which business strategy have they chosen?

B. Analyzer

Analyzers try to keep their position strong in the core product market (in this case obstetrics) but want to expand into new product market as well (in this case massages).

Memorial Hospital is known as a leader in research and innovation. The hospital just announced that they are now offering a new heart valve procedure that can be performed on an outpatient basis. What is their business strategy?

A. Prospector

Prospectors focus on growth through the development of new products and markets for these new products. In this case, the hospital iis looking to develop a new market for the their new heart valve procedure.

Accomplishing better patient outcomes (clinical and experiential) than your competition means competing on:

A. Quality

Karuppan, C. M., Waldrum, M. R., Dunlap, N.E. (2016) Operations Management in Healthcare: Strategy and Practice

(Chapter 2, Strategy, Page 51)