Question

Please short answer

. Horizontal integration and vertical integration .Discuss health information technology impact on healthcare strategic planning

Answer 1

1. ANS: Horizontal integration takes place when a firm acquires a similar firm in the same industry and both are placed at same level of the supply chain. It is the combining of processes which are at the same level in the supply chain or production process in the same industry or different industries. It can be done internally by reinvestment of capital or profits or it can be done externally for expansion.

Ex: If a firm producing mobile handsets acquires another firm that produces mobile handset, it is a horizontal integration (consider a hypothetical acquisition of Samsung by Nokia).

Vertical integration takes place when a firm acquires another firm that is at a different level of the supply chain. It is the process where a company combines one or more stages in the production process or in the supply chain like from supplying raw material to making finished product, the company takes control of the entire production process. This process helps in increasing efficiency and reducing costs.

Ex: Samsung acquiring its major supplier of mobile software producer is a vertical integration.

2. ANS: Health care is one of the most important sectors, which has adopted great technological changes to provide value delivery to patients. As, i believe by seeing the current trends then I am very much optimistic that health care and medical technology sector will be developed to a more sophisticated level. The failure of machines will be improved and one can say that the reliability of medical intervention will be upgraded to highest possible level. The growth of biomedical knowledge and the ubiquitous availability of computer-based information access and knowledge management tools will expand the types of jobs in the health care workforce and provide new business opportunities for support industries.

Healthcare information technology impact on strategic planning:

Healthcare information technology can helps in strategic planning and it can guide about the annual goals, budget s and projects of the organization. Strategic business plan is more important in health care organization to achieve the mission, vision and value of the organization. If the organization does not contain a business strategic plan then it needs to formulate the plan from HIS plan. During this planning, it needs to examine systematically the current state of the organization or condition and the changing nature of internal and external dynamics. Moreover it is needs to define the 5 to 10 year future state based on the mission, vision and value of the organization.

In the healthcare sector by using information technology strategic planning the organization’s productivity will be changed. Some of the key areas that a hospital strategic plan can significantly improve include:

Long Range Forecasting

Cost Accounting

Capital Planning

Risk Management

Service Line Decisions

Operating Budgeting

Goals and Objectives

Company Culture