Boosting Efficiency By Aravind Eye Hospital: An Analysis Through The Concept Of McDonaldization

Discuss about the Boosting of Efficiency by Aravind Eye Hospital.

McDonaldization is reconceptualised concept generated by a sociologist, George Ritzer in the year 1993. The concept has been generated based on the attributes that is manifested by the society of a fast food centre. The concept is based on the reconceptualization of scientific management and rationalization (Verhoeven 2015). The concept helps in generating the idea of homogenization of cultures globally that would persist cultural version. The concept of McDonaldization is gaining much attention in various aspects and cultures as it helps in adapting the concept of gloabalization (Ahuvia and Izberk-Bilgin 2014).

The aim of his report is to analyse the concept of McDonaldization by adhering it to the case of Aravind Eye Care Centre. This paper would help in assessing the business model that is followed by the organization with respect to the concept. It would have helpful to state the scalability of such models that is followed within the organization, thereby stating the positive and negative impacts associated with it. Some recommendations have been stated in order to mend the negative aspects and would help in overcoming certain persisting issues.

Aravind eye hospital aims at promoting eye health all over the world. It has been started by Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy along with his sister and brother in law n the year 1976. The eye hospital has started within a rented house with ten n=beds and three supervisors associated with it. Since then the hospital has been quite successful in analysing the growth in services provided, which has increased the number of beds associated t the firm to 1900. The hospital has been successful in providing its desired services to 1.9 million blind people. Along with its healing services to the blind, the hospital has collaborated with international institute for community ophthalmology that helps in providing a training program to the eye workers from the low-income countries around the world. Aravind is known as one of the largest eye hospitals that have been successful in handling 900 corneas per year. The hospital has been successful in generating certain eye camps programs that helps in creating eye care awareness in India. At Aravind, the average number of surgeries per doctor is 2000 per year. Aravind looks to multiply its benefits by hiring and training local doctors and surgeons. Even though Aravind pays slightly more than the government hospitals, seven to ten doctors leave each year. The reason is, since Aravind is non-profit organization, it is unable to compete pay wise with private practice institutions.

Business model of Aravind

The business model under which arriving d operates its sources  is quite different from any other business in the health sector. It has a striking similarity to the fast food industry, thereby applying the concept of McDonaldization into its functions. The hospital aims at running under the same principle on which the organization has been initiated, thereby expanding their services throughout the world, yet providing the same services among the large amount of people without compromising with their quality. Aravind’s business model has been quite efficient for the firm to generate one of the world’s most famous eye care services globally thereby imparting low-cost procedures that helps in offsetting the cost of delivering such high costs services. Aravind advertises its services quite elaborately that helps in generating an increased in the demand of the patients all over the world, who could get high class service at a low cost of transaction (Haripriya et al. 2016).

Implementation of technological up gradation in the organization has been termed as one of the most important achievements of the hospital that has been quite beneficial in generating the improvements that could be witnessed in their services being provided. The doctors, surgeons and nurses of the hospitals are connected to each other with the help of video conferences, instant messaging, online patient questionnaires, and with the use of web cams. The hospital has collaborated itself with the University Of Berkeley Information Technology Centre with the low cost Wi-Fi connection. This has helped the organization in enabling the access to the patients at a remarkable low cost service (Do et al. 2014).

By enabling the concept of McDonaldization to be adhered to the working of the Aravind eye hospital, it could be stated that the organization has been successful in implementing certain facts that would be quite logical in enabling a successful business associated to the firm. The business model of the organization has been formatted in such a manner, that it is quite efficient in providing a level of self-sustainability allowing them to use all incorne towards the expansion if the processes being generated by the hospital (Waring and Bishop 2015). It allows the patients free of costs or low costs healing procedures and plans that would help the patients in giving the money to the hospital when they are able to. Aravind's business model originally focused on just eye surgery and care, but after time it expanded into manufacturing in order to create low cost lenses. This change in the model was necessary because importing the lenses from the west was too expensive, and in order to comply with their vision of providing eye care to the disadvantaged, they needed to come up with a way to lower costs. Another way they have put into their system to help them reach more clients is by using a two-tiered pricing structure.

Application of McDonaldization in the business

The structure generated by Aravind hospital is quite efficient in approaching the obstacles that are found in the cataract surgery industry. The vital attributes of the Aravind model is that the hospital has been sustained in providing quality care and services at low and affordable costs. They are quite effecting in providing the services to both the poor and the rich section of the society, in spite of being self-sustaining in nature. The model followed by the organization could be easily replicated by the other firms of the world, where there s a large population in the need of a social cause. The procedures that are followed by Aravind hospital is quite efficient as they follow high standard protocols of clinical activities and procedures along with administrative movements undertaken. The hospital has been successful in expanding 200 centres all over the world in accordance to their consultancy services being provided and aims at expanding more in the rear future (Zebardast et al. 2016). The model that is followed by the hospital is quite scalable in the developing nations of the world in association to the fee system followed, quality of care, high aspirations and management techniques.

A business model is expected to bear certain flaws in it., in spite of being too appropriate n nature. There would be the persistence of certain negative aspects that acts as friction to the processes of business.  The business model that is followed by Aravind eye hospital is based upon the reliance of maintaining a strong client base. It needs a strong client base that would be efficient in undertaking the costs of maintaining the services of the firm (Thiel et al. 2016). The locational features of the firm also act as a factor of success for the model to work. If the quality of workers is diminished in the area attempted, then the Aravind system will not run as efficiently or effectively as intended. Another flaw that has been associated with the firm is that it has a high turnover rate as they are unable to pay their staffs as much as they might expect.

In order to aim at improving the quality of the services of the hospital and generating capitals and investments to sustain the services, it is quite vital for the firm to collaborate and align themselves with several institutions . These collaboration with certain companies would help them in expanding their services and providing high class service to the patients without facing any complications in future.

Conclusion

McDonaldization is considered as one of the most beneficial an effective concept of instigating a successful business prices within the framework of the organization. Aravind eye hospital has been quite important in generating extreme high-class services by operating in the field. They have been critical in their decision making thus far, and we feel confident that they will only become stronger as time goes by. Overall, though, it really is an excellent business model, and is doing a great deal of good for the people of india and all over the world.

Reference

Ahuvia, A. and Izberk-Bilgin, E., 2014. 13 Limits of the McDonaldization thesis. Brands: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 19, p.268.

Do, A.T., Ilango, K., Ramasamy, D., Kalidasan, S., Balakrishnan, V. and Chang, R.T., 2014. Effectiveness of low vision services in improving patient quality of life at Aravind Eye Hospital. Indian journal of ophthalmology, 62(12), p.1125.

Haripriya, A., Chang, D.F., Namburar, S., Smita, A. and Ravindran, R.D., 2016. Efficacy of intracameral moxifloxacin endophthalmitis prophylaxis at Aravind Eye Hospital. Ophthalmology, 123(2), pp.302-308.

Thiel, C.L., Schehlein, E., Saeedi, O., Schuman, J.S., Robin, A.L., Venkatesh, R., Ravindran, R.D. and Thulasiraj, R.D., 2016. Environmental Life Cycle Assessment and Costs of Phacoemulsification at Aravind Eye Hospital in Pondicherry, India. Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 57(12), pp.5575-5575.

Verhoeven, P., 2015. Corporate communication or McCommunication? Considering a McDonaldization of corporate communication hypothesis. Journal of Promotion Management, 21(2), pp.288-298.

Waring, J. and Bishop, S., 2015. George Ritzer: Rationalisation, Consumerism and the McDonaldisation of Surgery. In The Palgrave Handbook of Social Theory in Health, Illness and Medicine (pp. 488-503). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Zebardast, N., Kavitha, S., Palaniswamy, K., Sengupta, S., Kader, M.A., Raman, G., Reddy, S., Ramulu, P.Y. and Venkatesh, R., 2016. Angle Closure Phenotypes in Siblings of Patients at Different Stages of Angle Closure. Ophthalmology, 123(7), pp.1622-1624.