African Journal of
Business Management

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Bus. Manage.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1993-8233
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJBM
  • Start Year: 2007
  • Published Articles: 4187

Article in Press

Review of theory on management practices, health professionals’ performance and patient outcomes in the Western literature

Philipos Petros*, Joris van de Klundert and Judith van den Broek

  •  Received: 24 November 2015
  •  Accepted: 05 April 2016
The overall aim of this study is to examine the link between specific management practices, employee performance and patient outcomes in healthcare sector (hospitals). The study focus is on the two main dimensions of management practices, namely operations management and Human Resources (HR) practices, and shows their link with employee performance and healthcare outcomes. The study was conducted between June 2014 and July 2015. We reviewed Western literature from a view of benchmarking and informing researchers interested in exploring the links between management practices and employees performance and patient outcomes in the healthcare care industry in Africa. The study found that the hospital is a complex and human capital intensive healthcare sector that needs effective management practice to enhance quality of health care and patient outcomes. It has also identified variations of dimensions of modern management practices (that is, operations management and HRM practices) which are actually interwoven. The study further shown that bundles of HR practices are pivotal in enhancing the attitudes, skills and behaviors of employees (health professionals) for better performance in rendering quality health services meeting the expectation of customers or patients. Moreover, the study identified that patient outcomes (service, clinical and functional outcomes) are the results of employee performance which in turn is influenced by management practices in hospitals. In conclusion, modern management practices are crucial for maintaining and sustaining health professionals’ performance and improving quality of patient outcomes in hospitals. Thus, the study suggest hospital managers should design contextualized operations and HR management practices that will enhance a high level of health professionals performance, improve quality of health care and patient outcomes in hospitals.

Keywords: Management practices, operations management, HRM, employee performance, patient outcome, hospital.