Articles
The Top 10 in 2010: Ten Forces Framing Strategic Discussions for Health System Leaders
By any account, 2009 was a watershed year in which politics, the economy, public sentiment and the media all played a significant role in framing a new environment for health care over the next decade. With tumultuous challenge to the first significant overhaul of our nation’s health care system since the introduction of Medicare in the mid-1960s, health systems are still trying to determine the likely impact of payment reform initiatives on health system strategy. Here is a round-up of the most significant market forces that will shape strategic discussions over the next year, and most likely for the foreseeable future.
Building a High Performing Physician Enterprise
More than a few health system CEO’s committed millions of dollars in employment contracts to specialty physicians and in the process, raised expectations of clinical, programmatic, and market gains that would translate into an ROI. The return on those investments, though, is turning out to be more elusive than imagined. More than a few boards are beginning to pointedly ask the question: “when are we going to see some wins?” The answer may be “not anytime soon” unless health systems have a solid game plan for converting a collection of employed practices into a high-performing business unit.
Drive Market Change Through Differentiation and Segmentation
Many hospitals and health systems have recognized the value of service lines as a way to organize fragmented clinical care into something more easily marketable to consumers. While many service lines have succeeded in growing volumes, far more have underperformed expectations and not delivered growth commensurate with the resources devoted to their success. Powerful service lines transform the market, and are built on three core elements: differentiation, segmentation, and invention.
COR Healthcare Market Strategist - Community Hospitals Leverage Strengths
The basis for U.S. hospital competition is changing radically. Hospitals face increased expectations for superior quality from every quarter—a formidable challenge for all competitors, but especially daunting for community hospitals, rural facilities, and small health systems, which may believe they lack the resources to undertake and sustain major clinical improvement initiatives.
Yet small community hospitals do have their own considerable strengths, which they can leverage to compete more effectively with academic medical centers and larger healthcare networks for services that are appropriately delivered in the community hospital setting. For these, it’s a myth that 'bigger is always better.
Marketing Health Services - Steps to Competitive Advantage
In the health care industry, the most important decisions faced by executives and governing boards are, more often than not, posed by the marketplace. This applies to non-profit and for-profit companies and across large, diverse corporations and small businesses alike. The expectations and actions of consumers, government agencies, stockholders, competitors, and other interests continually reset the rules of competition. An organization’s ability to successfully develop and implement competitive strategy is the principal means to creating and sustaining competitive advantage over the long term.
