Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

By Michael Shipley
Senior Product Manager

by Lee Ann Lambdin

I hired a great analyst a few years ago. She was skilled with database programs, understood the complexities of the healthcare market, and had previously been a medical records coder—in short, she was very talented. The longer she was in her position, the more our state data was reported accurately and on a reliable schedule. It was a huge win for me and my team!

Recognizing her capabilities, I asked if she could start running "quarterly standard reports" that present key findings which could influence how our planning, marketing, and business development departments would function and what we would focus on in the weeks and months to come. These quarterly updates would be high-level summaries of our market landscape and would cover everything from our hospital’s market share, trended volume, competitor positions, product lines, payor mix, patient migration patterns and more. 

How to Systematically Kick-start Growth 

By Aaron Frazier

Hospital market share is measured by the breadth of services offered, distance to customers, public perception, and physician capacity. While this measurement is valid, it's also becoming increasingly complex to calculate as major shifts happen around how care is delivered. 

As discussed in a recent HealthLeaders Magazine article, “To win the market share battle, healthcare organizations must first redefine what it is and then build strategies that take advantage of the shifts in healthcare delivery.” Author Phillip Betbeze explains that the new indicators of market share include patient access (measured in part by ambulatory services growth, physician practices, and other service locations), physician claims data (outpatient surgery volume and growth, traditional office visits, and even telemedicine), and the cohesive network of services that make them a must-have for insurers’ narrow networks. 

Strategies for how to measure market share (and plan for growth) must change alongside the shifts in care delivery. Executing a SWOT Analysis of your market share allows you to take into account the many new factors impacting care delivery. This analysis will also provide an actionable outline of where to focus when mapping out your strategic growth plan.

By Jason Haley

For the sixth, and final, installment of our tapestry series, we’ll be covering Tapestry Segments in three differing LifeModes. (You can read the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth posts or access the whole series here.) 

Download the Entire Series Here:

Since this last post is covering three LifeModes that are unrelated, it will be structured a little differently than the first five posts in this series. We’ll cover a large swath of Urbanization Groups, then specifically dive into each of the three LifeModes separately. Each of the LifeModes will utilize healthcare differently than the next, so we’ll look at each section individually,rather than holistically, like we have in the past.

It has been a lot of fun covering Tapestry Segmentation throughout this blog series and our hope is that you not only know more than you did when we started, but also how you can utilize Psychographic data to your advantage within your markets and patient populations! If you have any questions about Tapestry Segmentation that these posts have not answered, you are more than welcome to reach out to me directly at jhaley@stratasan.com.

Before we dive into the last post, here’s a quick Tapestry refresher: Tapestry Segmentation was designed specifically for understanding your customer’s lifestyle choices —what they buy and how they spend their free time. This information gives Stratasan, and you, our clients, insights that help identify a facility’s patient types, optimal sites for hospitals, physician offices, FSERS, and urgent care locations. We use Tapestry Segmentation to help our clients get higher response rates, focus on the most profitable growth opportunities, and invest their resources in the best ways possible.

By Jason Haley

For the fifth installment of our tapestry series, we’ll be covering Tapestry Segments in the City.

(Note: you can read the first, second, third, fourth, and sixth posts or access the whole series here.)

Download the Complete Series Here:

This post (as well as the previous post) specifically highlights Tapestry Segments in LifeModes in America’s urban core. This post includes urban LifeModes predominantly made up of Ethnic Enclaves and Next Wave populations. Households in these Segments are made up of young, mobile, and diverse populations living in the most densely populated neighborhoods of the largest cities. As these populations get older and start families, they begin to move to neighborhoods that flank major cities as well as affluent suburbs. They will also begin to utilize health care more and more. By targeting these LifeModes, a healthcare organization can hone in on areas where the growth of healthcare needs can be expected in the future and plan accordingly.

Before we dive into the rest of this post, here’s a quick Tapestry refresher: Tapestry Segmentation was designed specifically for understanding your customer’s lifestyle choices —what they buy and how they spend their free time. This information gives Stratasan, and our clients, insights that help identify a facility’s patient types, optimal sites for hospitals, physician offices, FSERS, and urgent care locations. We use Tapestry Segmentation to help our clients get higher response rates, focus on the most profitable growth opportunities, and invest their resources in the best ways possible.

By Jason Haley

For the fourth installment of our tapestry series, we’ll be covering Tapestry Segments in the City.

(Note: you can read the first, second, third, fifth, and sixth posts  or access the whole series here.)

Download the Complete Tapestry Segmentation Guide:

This post (as well as the next) will specifically highlight Tapestry Segments in LifeModes in America’s urban core. Since there are so many urban segments, we’ll be covering them over two posts. This first post will include urban LifeModes predominantly made up of white and black populations. Households in these Segments are made up of people ages 28-47 years old. As these populations age into their 30s and 40s, they will begin to utilize health care more and more. By targeting these LifeModes, a healthcare organization can hone in on areas where the growth of healthcare needs can be expected in the future and plan accordingly.

Before we dive into the rest of this post, here’s a quick Tapestry refresher: Tapestry Segmentation was designed specifically for understanding your customer’s lifestyle choices —what they buy and how they spend their free time. This information gives Stratasan, and our clients, insights that help identify a facility’s patient types, optimal sites for hospitals, physician offices, FSERS, and urgent care locations. We use Tapestry Segmentation to help our clients get higher response rates, focus on the most profitable growth opportunities, and invest their resources in the best ways possible.

How to Foster a Data-Focused Culture

By Jennifer Keller

Gist Healthcare provides a weekly newsletter called the Weekly Gist.  A popular read in our office, we find it to be informative and useful for staying on top of the latest healthcare news.  In this newsletter, they distill the latest healthcare news, trends, and conversations with industry leaders into actionable guidance for CEOs and senior executives.

A recent excerpt from Gist caught our attention. The CMO of a regional health system shared that: “his personal efforts to champion greater performance transparency and tracking of key clinical metrics made a big difference in [his] system’s impressive results in elevating physician performance.” He went on to emphasize that “getting the doctors addicted to data” was a critical element of his system’s success.

Effectively Leverage Your Data for Maximum Growth Insights

By Lee Ann Lambdin, Kola Omotade, Tony Camarata

Are you asking the wrong questions of the right data; or the right questions of the wrong data? Most healthcare strategic planners understand the value of using data for informed decision making, but many don’t know how to effectively use data—or when to acquire new data—to find the answers they need.

When looking to assess market share or performance, you may feel the datasets you already have access to will provide the answers you need. But what if you don’t have the right data to answer these particular questions? Using the wrong data, you may miss important segments of your population in your analysis and risk using out-of-date or inconsistent data. A new data set all together may be needed to properly address the issues at hand.

Identify How Stratasan’s Software Can Most Effectively Meet Your Needs

Is your team equipped with the right tools to analyze data and execute your strategic plan? Do you have access to the expertise you need when looking to identify growth opportunities? Take this short quiz and identify which tools and services can improve your team alignment and promote strategic thinking.

With this quiz you'll receive:

• Immediate feedback about which of Stratasan's software and services are the right fit for your needs
• Answers about where to turn for improved data intelligence
• Insights about how to more effectively align your team and see growth results

What They Are, How to Address Them, and How to Avoid Them

By Hank Neuhoff

Many hospitals and healthcare systems are challenged with having too many analyst needs and too few analysts to complete the work. The massive increase in available healthcare data and our insatiable desire to extract value from that data are both going to continue to grow.

With the increased need for analyst expertise and the shortage of analysts to do the work, we simply cannot afford the cost, time, or trauma of repeating classic analyst missteps. The purpose of this post is to highlight some of the common mistakes analysts make and address how to avoid them.