Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

Why the Benefits of Being Independent Can Outweigh Systemization

By Lee Ann Lambdin

Independent hospitals face undeniable challenges in today’s stressful, competitive healthcare environment. The estimated 1,609 independent hospitals in the U.S. must go at it alone in the world of declining reimbursement, increasing expenses, declining inpatient volume, new competition, and provider shortages. Consider these stats:

• In 2018, hospital consolidations were up 11% from the first quarter of 2017
• Since 2010, hospital mergers and acquisitions are up 75% from 66 transactions in 2010 to 115 in 2017
• More than 85 rural hospitals have closed since 2010 and those closures were spread across more than 26 states

In the face of these challenges, a 2011 to 2015 Definitive Healthcare analysis identified a concerning trend: only 143 out of around 1,450 independent hospitals could be classified as “high-performing,” based on a median operating margin of at least four percent.

The benefits of systemization are well touted: increased efficiency, lower costs, increased quality, economies of scale, increased access to capital, greater talent and intellectual resources, increased leverage with payers resulting in increased reimbursement. However, there is debate around how recent megamergers will fail, and on March 16, 2016, Paul B. Ginsberg, lauded economist, testified before the California Senate Committee on Health on fostering competition in consolidated markets and stated, “The research literature on hospital mergers is now substantial and shows that mergers lead to higher prices, although without any measured impact on quality.” In light of his testimony, we want to consider how stand-alone hospitals can succeed in today’s difficult healthcare environment. Being an independent hospital has advantages, and those must be used as the basis of short- and long-term strategic planning for success.

Tags: healthcare strategic growth, strategic growth plan, hospital growth, independent hospital, community hospital, rural hospital

By Lee Ann Lambdin and Jason Haley

Refining Your Process for Better Marketing ROI and Growth Planning Success

The first step in any planning or marketing endeavor for a healthcare organization is service area definition. Before demographics or market share can be run, an appropriate service area must be applied.

There is no one-size-fits-all way to define a service area. In fact, there are several ways to do it. Which one is best? The answer is, it depends.  Defining a service area is both art and science.   In our years of working with healthcare strategists, marketers, and planners , we’ve   found that most organizations define their service areas incorrectly, often defining   them larger than th ey should.  

 

 

Tags: strategic growth, strategic growth planning, healthcare, healthcare strategic growth, analytics partner, healthcare service area, service area growth, data analyst, healthcare analyst

Tags: strategic growth, strategic growth planning, healthcare, healthcare strategic growth, service area growth, data analyst, healthcare analyst, success story

By Lee Ann Lambdin, Taylor Smith, and Jackie DeGroat

Why It’s Critical for Measuring Progress, Driving Growth, and Meeting Goals

A Playbook for Independent Hospitals and Small Health Systems

Most marketing, strategic planning, and physician relations teams recognize the value of tracking the ROI of their outreach efforts, but it's challenging to do. This is especially true for independent hospitals and small health systems.

But for these smaller healthcare providers, it's especially important that they strategize and track success in tandem, because they don't have the money or bandwidth to duplicate efforts, nor the support of a corporate office or hospital support center.

Tags: strategic growth, strategic growth planning, healthcare, healthcare strategic growth, analytics partner, healthcare service area, service area growth, data analyst, healthcare analyst

We hope it’s been a wonderful year of growth and learning through Stratasan's Strategic Growth blog series. As we close out the year, we thought it would be helpful to share the 5 most popular blog posts from 2017. These posts received the most hits and seemed to provide the most helpful strategic growth guidance to you, our readers.

If you’re traveling over the holidays, this is a great way to review helpful blog posts that you may have missed or revisit your favorites for fresh insight.

 

Tags: Blog, physician relations, strategic growth, health care, healthcare, healthcare marketing, healthcare strategic growth, marketing, software, healthcare service area, physician recrutiment, service area, 2017

By Tony Camarata

Is your healthcare system failing to meet annual strategic goals due to a lack of organizational alignment? Studies show that the highest-performing healthcare organizations have a strategic plan that sets a clear direction for all functional teams. This plan succeeds or fails depending upon organization-wide understanding of the goals, tactics, and measurable outcomes needed to fulfill the strategic goals. Conversely, if your team is unable to establish alignment, your health system risks stagnation and year-over-year frustration about your inability to meet goals and expectations.  

Here’s a look at how to improve your hospital’s organizational alignment from top to bottom and why getting this right could be the key to meeting your annual strategic goals.

Tags: strategic growth, strategic growth planning, strategic planners, strategic planning, data, healthcare, healthcare strategic growth, alignment

Why the Right Referral Software is Necessary to Ensure Goals Are Being Met

By Jackie DeGroat and Sean Conway

Hospitals depend heavily on their referring physicians for patient volume and revenue, which is why developing and maintaining relationships with these physicians is so important. Physician Liaisons are the face, voice, eyes, and ears of this demanding effort. Physicians have a lot of options for referrals and this competition puts even more pressure on physician relations teams to effectively manage provider relationships.

Physician relations teams are responsible for strengthening relationships between physicians and their hospital or health system, with the goal of driving more referrals in-network. There are many components that make up a quality physician relations program, such as a strategic sales plan, effective encounters, and meaningful conversations. But to ensure program goals are being met, physician relations teams must track and measure their initiatives so they can successfully identify opportunities for improvement.

Tags: Physician Pathway, physician referral, physician relations, strategic growth, healthcare data, healthcare marketing, healthcare strategic growth, healthcare strategic planning, marketing, healthcare physician strategy, healthcare data analytics

Introducing Demographics for Launch Pathway

By Tony Camarata, Morgan Atkins, and Rebecca Groner

Demographic data is one of the oldest forms of strategic planning data available. The inaugural US Census was in 1790, which is relatively recent considering the history of census data. Today, demographic data is a basic commodity with detailed information being available on the Census Bureau's website. You can also get this kind of information from numerous established businesses or from a trade association.

While easy access to demographic data is convenient, simply having the information is often not enough. Businesses and organizations looking to use demographic data to find opportunities for growth will need the data to be filtered and organized in a way that makes it useful. This is especially the case for hospitals and healthcare systems.

Tags: strategic growth, demographics, healthcare data, healthcare marketing, healthcare strategic growth, healthcare strategic planning, marketing, marketing development, marketing roi, targeted marketing, launch pathway, healthcare data analytics, healthcare demographics

By Lee Ann Lambdin

In 2013, Centura Health was a four-hospital system in the Denver area on the verge of becoming irrelevant in their market. Solely hospital-centric and expecting people to come to them, they had no ambulatory presence. In search of some fresh ideas and guidance on how to implement change, they engaged Health System Advisors to increase their ambulatory services in the market.

Tags: conference, healthcare conference, healthcare strategic growth, healthcare strategic planning, SHSMD, shsmd17, exhibit booth, Ambulatory

By Morgan Atkins

No surprise for a conference with a primary focus on education, SHSMD Connections 2017 kicked off with a couple of day-long intensive sessions. These focused learning programs are designed specifically to develop key skills identified in SHSMD’s Bridging Worlds: The Future Role of the Healthcare Strategist.

Tags: strategic growth, conference, healthcare, healthcare conference, healthcare strategic growth, SHSMD, shsmd17, healthcare meetings, meetings