Sustaining socially driven healthcare delivery: Development of social entrepreneurship framework

Healthcare industry is integral to the society and key to social and economic development. However, confronted with the challenges of rising costs, consumerism, and needs for service access, healthcare organizations face surmountable pressure to strive for a balance between sustainability and providing services that leave no one behind. This study reports a framework with which providers are able to examine their socially entrepreneurial strategies against the best practices and plan for creating both social and economic value to maintain its sustainability. The framework was developed with case study methodology and then examined with the best practices of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award winners. In order to sustain the socially driven initiatives, a healthcare organization needs to adapt to business models for excellence. Aside from the business operational side, the attitude and motivation of the leaders play a critical role for fostering a socially-oriented organizational culture and their shared vision is then embodied in entrepreneurial strategies through the iterative review and improvement process. The service values that were generated by the award winners include free care programs, service learning, community care and programs, and “green” concepts in operation. Our examination shows that while generating the abovementioned social values, these organizations also attain staler records in their respective economic performance as a result of their respective entrepreneurial business strategies that build strategic alliance, well defined roles and accountability system, systems that encourage innovation and creativity of the employees, well structured management system with strong top management embeddedness, and interactive patient education.