Strategy Development Based On Six Sigma Assessment Of The Voluntary Turnover Of Hospital Contractual Professionals

With the reform of personnel system, quota system of medical institution faces daily increased challenges. Contractual professionals account for a larger proportion and take up more important positions than before, which mean their turnover will be great losses of their hospitals. At the same time, improvement of employment mechanism in medical institutions, which is also needed to develop the double-track system of permanent and contractual employees, becomes the critical problem of hospital human resource management. However, current researches about turnover of contractual professionals in hospitals mostly focus on the population of nurses with the exclusion of other professionals. Quantitative models are seldom built to investigate turnover recognition of hospital contractual professionals. Exploration, recognition, and evaluation of key factors for contractual professionals’turnover, which could establish a new method for the management of hospital human resource system, are definitely important for the performance and improvement of employee-keeping strategies.Six Sigma is recognized as a widely applied scientific strategies focusing on process improvement. It includes six phases:defining the system, measuring key aspects of current processes, analyzing the data, optimizing the current process, and controlling the future process. Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality output of process by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes, which could satisfies customers and boosts competitive ability of the organization. Statistical data is the core of Six Sigma techniques. We want to introduce Six Sigma to hospital human resource management, by which we hope to solve practical problems including loss of contractual professionals in hospital Z.By literature summarization and in-depth interviews, our work presented exploratory research on turnover factors of contractual professionals in hospitals. Those special variables which could be influence of hospital contractual professionals’ management were found, with the exception of those turnover factors used in the classic turnover model of Price-Muller (2000). With analysis of collected data, a primary model about turnover of hospital contractual professionals was build based on environmental variables, individual variables, structural variables, mediating variables, and process variables which makes this model could more completely and more accurately explain the reason of contractual professionals’loss in hospitals.Our work targeted reduction of contractual professionals turnover in hospital and define, measure, analyze,improve and control(DMAIC) was followed to analyze concrete cases:In phase of definition, SIPOC flow chart was firstly used to define the scope of the project. Critical characteristics of hospital contractual professionals loss were also identified and analyzed to get measurement index. Finally project goals were defined based on real conditions.In phase of measurement, process capability analysis was engaged in understanding the controlled state of process needed to be modified. Based on the turnover model of hospital contractual professionals, Questionnaire of medical personnel career life quality was made. The questionnaire included nine parts with 100 questions, which completely covered 24 variables in the turnover model of hospital contractual professionals. Measurement Systems Analysis showed Cronbach’s a internal consistency was 0.981 (>0.80) and KMO value was 0.854 (>0.80), which meant the reliability and validity of the questionnaire met the standards of designing and the questionnaire could be applied to various hospitals at all levels.In phase of analysis, the relationship between individual variables and turnover intention was analyzed with independent-sample T test and one way analysis of variance. Correlation analysis among individual variables, structural variables, environmental variables, mediating variables, and process variables suggested that nearly all individual variables and environment variables had positive influence on mediating variables, with the exception of general training which only had positive effects on organization commitment in mediating variables. Environmental variables had directly negative impact on process variables which was positively affected by mediating variables. Those results suggested that hospital contractual professionals resigned mainly on account of work satisfaction and organization commitment. Those two factors influenced over turnover behaviors with turnover considerations. The conclusion was consistent with the theoretical model. It meant that improved turnover model had strong explanatory power on turnover behaviors of hospital contractual professionals and this model would be a stable basis of hospital contractual professionals turnover research. Finally, key factors that could affect turnover of contractual professionals in hospital Z were determined with regression analysis and we also produced a path graph of impact factors about contractual professionals turnover in hospital Z. Controlled variables and uncontrolled variables were precisely distinguished, while the priority of controlled variables were also determined.In phase of improvement, promotion opportunity, former employee opportunity, and salary were selected as first target of significant improvement according to key factors found in phase of analysis. A series of focused strategies were designed to systematically ameliorate crucial factors with influence on turnover intention of contractual professionals in hospital Z. First, Promotion policy of professionals was adjusted and personal training programs were better financed. Second, organization commitment was further achieved by incorporating contractual employees and open recruitment of professionals. At last, the salaries of contractual professionals were raised to get close to the goal,’equal work, equal money’.In phase of control, process quality control system of hospital contractual professionals was built. Existing improvement was consolidated by continuous process measurement and control of the numbers of turnover employees with SPC control chart.With Six Sigma techniques, our work analyzed key factors of contractual professionals’turnover in hospital Z and reduced the loss of contractual professionals. It provided a new way for the research of hospital staff turnover. Our results also contributed to the scientific standard quantitative management of hospital human resource. The turnover rate of contractual professionals was decreased from 6.2% to 3.1%. Data before and after improvement were compared with two-population proportions test, and p value is less than 0.05. The statistical significance demonstrated that the improvement took magnificent effect on the quality stabilization of clinical works and the cost reduction of recruitment and training.