Munich Hospital as a Case Study
Almost half of all German hospitals are operating in a deficit, with the trend continually increasing. In addition to financial difficulties, hospitals are under extremely high pressure to provide the best care to patients. On top of these challenges, regulations are constantly changing which requires significant effort from the industry to meet compliance as quickly as possible. Traditionally, hospitals operate through highly formalized approaches to project management. The strict adherence to traditional project management makes it difficult for hospitals to even consider other types of project management, particularly the Agile method and Agile project portfolio management. So how do hospitals even begin to adopt more Agile methods?
Munich Hospital is the second largest municipal hospital and one of about 2,000 hospitals in Germany. Like approximately half of all existing hospitals, Munich Hospital was in the red for a long time, which is why they decided to reorganize and re-strategize hospital projects in 2014 to avoid impending insolvency. The City of Munich and the federal government invested more than 750 million euros to modernize the hospital and put it on a sound footing so that it can continue to offer excellent care to patients.
Despite the traditional project management methods used in the healthcare industry, Munich Hospital managed to adopt the Agile method and Agile project portfolio management through a stringent but dynamic process. Impressively, the hospital also managed to do so while mostly operating in the black – not an easy feat for a hospital or any business changing the way they work.
We spoke to Marco Weidemeier, Head of Corporate Development at Munich Hospital to find out how they completed this project successfully.