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Vila Health ® Activity

Strategic Analysis and Operational Considerations

· Introduction

· Challenge Details

· Analysis

· Interviews

· Conclusion

Introduction

For leaders in health care – or any industry – strategic analysis is a crucial tool for staying aware of both internal conditions and external environments. Without a keen vision of both, leaders can make decisions that work in theory, but go awry in the real world.

Challenge Details

St. Anthony Medical Center is a large urban hospital in Minneapolis, owned by Vila Health, a health system with hospitals and clinics in three midwestern states. The CFO, Owen Welch, is working on some strategic planning for the coming year, and he's asked you to gather some information for his analysis.

Analysis

Email

From: Owen Welch, CFO

Subject: Analysis

Hey, thanks for helping with my analysis. I just don't have time to run down some of this material myself. I suggest starting with the company Intranet — it will have some information I need — and then talking to a few people I've lined up to give you some perspective.

Owen

Document

Market Data Summary

The following is a summary of the information gathered by McGinty and Reed, the consulting firm we asked to report to us about the state of the market in the region where St. Anthony Medical Center operates. Specifically, we asked the firm to tell us about facilities that directly compete with facilities we offer or have considered offering. As such, this report contains no information about facilities that offer services we do not offer or are not considering offering.

Free-Standing 120-Bed Pediatric Hospital

As you're aware, Children's Medical Center is located within the 12-mile radius (the "competitive zone") that we established as our zone of interest. This is a 120-bed hospital with NICU, PICU, and both children's and adolescent health care.

Inpatient Skilled Nursing

There are two of these facilities in the competitive zone: Benedictine Health Center and Redeemer Health and Rehab. Both offer physical, occupational, and speech therapy; ventilator care; short-term care; skilled nursing services; palliative care, and hospice care.

Free-Standing Outpatient Surgical Center

Two miles from St. Anthony Medical Center is the Greenway Surgery Center, which offers surgical services on an outpatient basis for:

· Spine

· Orthopedics

· General Surgery

· Ear, Nose, and Throat

· Pain Management

· Urology

· Podiatry

Nursing Homes

There are more than 100 nursing homes in the Minneapolis area, but 7 fall into our competitive zone:

· Ebenezer Care Center

· Richfield Health Center

· Golden Living Center

· The Kenwood

· Augustana Health Care

· Redeemer Health and Rehab

· Birchwood Care Home

Future Competition

As you may or may not be aware, a 50-bed for-profit acute care hospital has been under construction for the last year or so in the Seward neighborhood. Last week, a Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal article said that the hospital is going to open in eight months.

Internal and Confidential DO NOT DISTRIBUTE

Interviews

Owen Welch has asked several hospital leaders to talk to you about the current state of St. Anthony Medical Hospital. Talk to each one to find out what they think is important to know.

Interviews

Read each individual's statement:

George Fink

Director of Clinical Operations

What do you think of the current state of St. Anthony Medical Hospital?

Tell Owen, as I've told him before, that we're doing fine, and we're busy. Our biggest problem is that right now, patients are waiting between two and four weeks for radiology and rehabilitation appointments. It depends on the modality, of course, but for more cases than not, patients are having to wait longer than we'd like.

Harold Liss

Vice President of Medical Services (CMO)

What do you think of the current state of St. Anthony Medical Hospital?

Well, our medical department has four physician vacancies. With 400 physicians on staff (and I think more with visiting privileges), this isn't necessarily a huge problem, but I have been surprised by how difficult it's been to replace those docs. We need an internal medicine doc, and we'd like to find one who specializes in thyroid conditions; an infectious diseases specialist; a neurologist who can handle traumatic brain injuries; and a generalist.

At least in the generalist category, we've had trouble finding someone who was willing to work third shift. Maybe our salary isn't competitive; we figure the split differential should help, but maybe not.

Troy Holland

Director of Patient Services

What do you think of the current state of St. Anthony Medical Hospital?

We've got a problem in Emergency, although actually the problem is elsewhere; Emergency is just where it's showing up. We don't have enough beds in the specialty departments, and so the emergency room is holding patients rather than releasing them to those departments. Obviously, that causes overcrowding in ER, but these aren't patients we can discharge, so we have to put them somewhere.

Mary Mills

Nurse Manager, Med-Surg

What do you think of the current state of St. Anthony Medical Hospital?

In Med-Surg, we've had a pretty significant increase in cases where we can't discharge the patient because there's nowhere to put them. The nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, and skilled nursing facilities in the area are full, and so there isn't a bed for them that meets their needs.

Conclusion

Now that you've learned more about St. Anthony Medical Center, what will you focus on in your strategic analysis?