Healthcare Strategic Growth Blog

Adapting Your Growth Strategy to Meet the Needs of Aging and Racially and Ethnically Diverse Patient Populations 

By Michael Shipley
Senior Product Manager

Tags: Blog, physician referral, Stratasan, strategic growth, strategic growth planning, strategic planning, data analytics, data-driven decisions, data strategy, growth planning, health care, health data, health strategist, health strategy, health system, health systems, healthcare, healthcare budget, healthcare planning, healthcare strategic growth, healthcare strategic planning, healthcare strategy, healthcare systems, hospital, hospital planning, hospital strategic planning, hospital strategy, hospitals, Inpatient Statistics, markeitng, Market Share, nashville, Physicians, Population Health Management, referral data, referrals, healthcare market share, marketing research, patient population, service area growth, service line growth, strategic growth plan, physician outreach strategy, Hospital growth plan, healthcare leadership, healthcare market data, hospital growth, physician patterns, patient experience, customer experience, physician strategy, diversity, data confidence, outmigration, physician referral leakage, outpatient, HOPD, 2022, Patient Origin, Syntellis, healthcare annual planning

See Better Results with A Year-Round Planning Process

By Jason Moore

Hospitals have traditionally created an annual strategic plan as a roadmap for achieving growth goals. While still an important step in the growth process, it's becoming clear that a stand alone annual plan won't cut it in today's healthcare world. 

This annual routine has been driven by annual data reporting—a factor that is changing due to increased adoption of the frequently updated all-payer claims data (APCD). Stratasan’s APCD updates monthly, for example, allowing for more frequent market reporting that can lead to plan adjustments.

There is also reason to believe that plans are more widely adopted when more members of the organization are invested in the process. This can be a difficult change in mindset for organizations accustomed to planning that takes place only at the c-suite level.

How can hospitals shift to take advantage of more readily available data insights and make changes that will ensure greater adoption? The answer is an iterative planning process that invites organization-wide input and applies data-backed market insights.

Tags: strategic growth, strategic growth planning, strategic plan, strategic planners, strategic planning, hospital strategic growth, strategic growth plan, Hospital growth plan, hospital growth

Drive More Patient Volume and Improve Your Bottom Line

By Jackie DeGroat and Megan Reeves

Here’s something you already know: hospitals need physicians in order to drive patient volume. Opening a new service line or expanding an existing one is dependent on successful physician recruitment.

What you may not fully understand is how to involve physicians in a way that engages them at a strategic level. It can be a challenge to incorporate their input, even when you know it’s important to do so. And it can be a particularly difficult prospect for hospitals who have not prioritized this approach in the past, as it means a change to the status quo.

But the reality is that involving physicians in your planning can improve their connection to your hospital and their loyalty to your mission, vision, and values. It can also increase their buy-in, leading them to be more productive and willing participants in service line growth. Additionally, physicians have a firsthand understanding of your patient’s needs. Their input into your strategic growth strategy can lead to better alignment with the needs of your market.

Tags: physician relations, strategic growth, strategic growth planning, hospital strategic growth, physician recrutiment, strategic growth plan, healthcare physician strategy

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

A HealthRedesigned Podcast

By Jason Moore

The rapid progression of healthcare means it’s more important than ever for hospitals to understand how they should evolve. The need for the right data to make the best strategic decisions possible has become a critical component to growth.

Through our applications and our services, Stratasan makes it easier for hospitals and healthcare systems to turn their data into intelligence and make data-based decisions that’ll help them grow strategically and stay competitive.

I recently chatted with Jon Lay, Founder at Hanno, and discussed these ideas, which were recorded in this podcast conversation.

Tags: healthcare analytics partner, healthcare growth, healthcare patient, strategic growth plan, Hospital growth plan, healthcare market data, healthcare data analytics, hospital growth, podcast, growth mindset

By Morgan Atkins

Within healthcare organizations, teams are now a fundamental unit of organization. One study, published in The Harvard Business Review, found that ‘‘the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50 percent or more’’ over the last two decades and that more than three-quarters of an employee’s day is spent communicating with colleagues at many companies.

With the emphasis on teamwork, it’s important for the practices of these teams to be thoughtfully considered. Particularly, the common and important team effort of brainstorming new ideas together. “Studies show that people working in teams tend to achieve better results and report higher job satisfaction.” The New York Times Magazine reports. Knowing that, we wanted to discuss how brainstorming can be an effective team experience.

Tags: strategic growth planning, strategic planning, growth planning, team, strategic growth plan, growth mindset, brainstorming

Maintain a Growth Mindset in the Face of Tightening Margins and Shrinking Departments

By Lee Ann Lambdin

As healthcare margins continue to tighten and consolidation remains a reality for many small hospitals, numerous marketing professionals are feeling the need to validate their impact by developing marketing strategies based on reliable, data-based intelligence. The pressure is on to stretch marketing dollars as far as possible, and it’s important for marketing outreach to be focused and data-based. 

Marketers and strategic planners alike are facing a new reality that requires them to do more with less. Many who have marketing in their title are also responsible for planning and strategy as well, and it’s apparent that this phenomenon is due to one of two things:

• Either there was never a planning position or strategy has increasingly become a more important function for the hospital or health system so this job was given to the department that made the most sense: marketing.
• Or, the planning position was eliminated over time and the function was consolidated with the marketing function.

Tags: strategic growth, strategic growth planning, strategic plan, strategic planners, health strategist, healthcare planning, healthcare strategic growth, healthcare strategic planning, hospital strategic growth, hospital strategic planning, healthcare analytics partner, healthcare growth, strategic growth plan

The planning, strategy, and execution of a strategic growth plan can be daunting for any size healthcare organization. Most healthcare groups need assistance from one or more outside partners for various aspects of the process. Your choice in partner(s) is a big one and is not something to jump into hastily: contracts can make up a significant portion of your budget and onboarding is long and time-consuming.

 

Before you get started, it’s important to know what qualifies a vendor as a good strategic growth partner for your specific needs. We’ve compiled a list of the five most important qualities you should look for and think about when pursuing a vendor partnership:

 

Tags: Blog, strategic planning, data analytics, health care, healthcare, healthcare strategic growth, analytics partner, growth partnership, healthcare analytics partner, partner, strategic growth plan