Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

Connecting Your Members with the Right CHNA Partner 

By Lee Ann Lambdin and Megan Reeves

A Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) identifies a community’s most significant health issues and needs through systematic data collection and analysis. Every three years, non-profit hospitals are required to submit a CHNA report and adopt an implementation plan to address the identified needs so they can maintain their 501(c)(3) tax-exempt or “charitable” status.

As 2022 quickly approaches, many of your member hospitals will be due to complete their new CHNA. In this post, we’ll discuss the ways you can help your members prepare for and navigate the CHNA process, including:

• Ensuring your members are clear on what they must do to stay federally compliant
• Finding ways to promote the real value that can be gained from a CHNA (beyond compliance)
• Offering resources to members who need help executing their CHNA 

The CHNA process may take several months and resources to complete, so now is the time for your member hospitals to be thinking about their 2022 CHNAs. Keep reading to learn how you can help.

How Stratsan’s Data Process has Adapted to Maintain Data Integrity

By Megan Reeves 

New ICD and DRG codes are created every year by CMS. Why and how these codes are created and released is discussed in detail in this post. These diagnosis and procedure codes allow for:

• Easy storage, retrieval, and analysis of health information for evidence-based decision-making
• Sharing and comparing health information between hospitals, regions, settings, and countries
• Data comparisons in the same location across different time periods

They are usually released in the fall, with an announcement at the beginning of Q3. This allows healthcare providers to prepare and plan for any changes to come. Codes then typically go into effect October 1, the beginning of Q4 of that year.  

While there is a standard schedule and process for when and how codes are released, COVID-19 is a unique situation and has triggered the creation of new codes outside the normal process. Creating a new set of codes outside the standard way of doing so, can lead to issues. In this post, we’ll discuss one such issue that our team has noticed—the spike in invalid and ungroupable DRGs—and how we’re addressing this problem for our clients.

Access the Latest Population Data for Better Strategic Planning

By Megan Reeves

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released the 2020 Census results, triggering conversations among marketers and planners everywhere about changing market demographics. These results track the nation’s diversity and how we’re evolving.

Key takeaways from the 2020 Census include the following:

• The non-Hispanic white population nationwide got smaller, shrinking from 196 million in 2010 to 191 million in 2020
• Almost all of the growth of the past 10 years happened in metropolitan areas
• The share of children in the U.S. declined because of falling birth rates, while it grew for adults, driven by aging baby boomers
• The nation’s 7.4% growth rate over the decade, the smallest since the Great Depression, was largely propelled by a Hispanic boom
• Among all U.S. metro areas, the fastest-growing one was in The Villages, the Florida retirement community built on former cow pastures

For healthcare business development leaders, these population shifts should be a signal that it’s time to reevaluate their own market demographics, to ensure they’re set up to adequately meet the needs of their community. 

Stratasan, through the use of Esri's Tapestry Segmentation, is positioned to help in this endeavor.

Key Learnings from our Conversations with Hospital Associations

By Megan Reeves 

Given our history serving the nation's top healthcare organizations, assisting them in processing data and using it to make growth decisions, we have unparalleled insight into the data needs of hospitals of all shapes and sizes. We know what matters to end-users of the data collection process and we’re able to apply our knowledge to the process as a whole to make it easier, more efficient, and with an output that is better for strategic decision making.  

In an effort to sharpen our understanding of state association needs and the state data aggregation process, we spent time connecting with associations across the nation. We wanted to learn more about the challenges they’re facing, and how we can better support their work. 

What we heard in these conversations reinforced our long-standing understanding that state data is complex, and aggregation is challenging, with requirements differing by state. 

The following are learnings we gleaned from these discussions, which covered a multitude of topics including partnerships, data types, release schedules, challenges facing members, and hopes for the future of hospital associations. We hope the insights gathered here highlight the hard work already being done, and some key opportunities for optimizing data in ways that would benefit both associations and their members.

Why This Relationship is Critical for the Success of Both Organizations

By Megan Reeves

Most hospital associations identify as the principal advocate for their respective state's hospitals and healthcare systems. While they exist to serve and support, their essential value is sometimes overlooked or taken for granted. In this post, we’ll cover some of the top reasons hospitals need their state associations and how this partnership can be crucial to growth. We’ll also touch on why hospitals are critical to the associations as well. It’s a symbiotic relationship, and its value increases the more each partner invests in the other.

Tips for Supporting and Encouraging Providers and Members

By Megan Reeves

Hospitals are looking to their state associations for help now possibly more than ever. They need reassurance as they navigate uncertainty about the future and the impact of COVID-19. They’re anxious to respond to changing legislation. They’re concerned with whether or not they’re equipped to sustain their current staff and grow in the future.

In this post, we’re highlighting the many ways we’ve seen hospital associations step up and support their hospitals in meaningful ways. We wanted to shed light on the work being done and offer inspiration to associations looking for fresh ways to provide value.

Test Your Music City Knowledge With These 10 Questions

By Megan Reeves

The Stratasan team loves trivia. In fact, we have a team that regularly competes in a weekly trivia night in Nashville, TN where we are based. With SHSMD 2019 in our hometown, we saw the perfect opportunity to pair our love for trivia with our love for Nashville.

The following quiz is filled with questions referencing unique and little-known Nashville lore. Take a few minutes to test your Nashville savvy and for those of you attending SHSMD 2019, take away a few conversation starters you can test out with new friends you make during the week.

Successfully Execute Your Strategic Planning Initiatives

By Megan Reeves

If you’re like many Americans, you made a few New Year’s Resolutions last month [I’m drinking more water this year, for what it’s worth] and you’re likely still trying to hold onto them. The struggle to keep our resolutions is very real. In fact, 80% of resolutions don’t make it past the second week of February.

With this reality in mind, it may be time to consider a different proposition. Instead of making resolutions, what if, instead we set goals? Goals are much more actionable and specific — which is what makes them more effective — whereas resolutions tend to be broad and vague. The argument for goal setting has its place in our personal life and is entirely transferrable to the work arena as well. Specifically, for hospitals and health systems who have a strategic plan in place for 2019, goal setting will be a vital part of your success.

Up Your Pop Culture Game With These 10 Questions

The Stratasan team loves trivia. In fact, we have a team that regularly competes in a weekly trivia night in Nashville, TN where we are based. As we prepared for SHSMD 2018, we saw the perfect opportunity to pair our love for trivia with one of the key events of the conference—the 2018 networking social being held at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP). The following quiz is filled with trivia questions referencing exhibitions currently on display at the museum. Take a few minutes to test your pop culture savvy and for those of you attending SHSMD 2018, take away a few conversation starters you can test out with new friends you make at the networking event.