EkoCorp positions for growth after transformation

EkoCorp, the quoted company of Eko Hospital, one of Nigeria’s leading hospitals, has now positioned for growth after completing the first phase of its transformation programme.

The Board of EkoCorp, at the beginning of this year made a decision to launch a transformation program, aimed at setting the organization on a path for growth.

The first phase- a 6-month period, which started in March was largely focused on laying a foundation for the transformation and was led by one of Nigeria’s leading management consulting firms – Ciuci Consulting.

The six-month interim managers led by Chukwuka Monye, interim chief cxecutive officer/ Ciuci Consulting, managing partner, focused on improving the operations of the organization by optimizing processes, enhancing the financial management systems and improving patients’ experience.

According to the interim managers whose term ends August 31, 2018, it was imperative to address fundamental operational issues before embarking on the growth agenda so that the implementation of the related strategies are sustained and all stakeholders can enjoy the resulting benefits.

Monye said Eko Hospital enjoys significant patient patronage on a daily basis across its different locations, particularly Surulere and Ikeja. With its patient volumes, it was important to transition the organization into an operationally efficient organization. One critical way to achieve this objective was to automate key areas of its operations, specifically, implementing a hospital and patient management system and a robust account management system.

The management team increased the visibility of financial activities by ensuring online real-time daily reporting and proactive interventions when discrepancies occur in transacting with HMOs. The impact of this new system can be seen in the average monthly revenue of the last 6 months, which surpassed that of 2017 by 13 percent.

Although there are several experiential touchpoints for patients, the critical areas that were prioritized during the first phase phase included improving customer service; patients’ wait time and the hospital’s ambience.

Speaking at a press conference in Lagos, Monye said the interim management team commenced the implementation of a comprehensive strategy to enhance its human capital. “A lot of emphasis was placed on capacity building in different areas. Another major program was restructuring the performance management system to ensure that all clinical and non-clinical staff make patients the priority in everything that they do”.

According to him a number of processes have also been streamlined to reduce the time it takes for patients to be attended to. It is expected that this will further improve as the adoption of the hospital and patient management system increases.

“Although the improvement of the ambience is slated for the next phase of the transformation project, it was important to begin to set the stage for enhancing the ambiance of the hospital. Selected areas in different locations were revamped including some wards and common areas”, Monye added.

Others who addressed the media were, Adegbite Ogunmokun, EKO Hospital, chief medical officer, and Blessing Chukwukelu, deputy chief medical officer and director of training.

They said they are happy with the transformation of the hospital as they can so many jobs in little time.