Environmental Analysis and Setting Strategic Goals

Environmental Analysis

Environmental Analysis and Setting Strategic Goals

Name

Class

Date

Professor

Environmental Analysis and Setting Strategic Goals

Piedmont Healthcare is a physician owned health care conglomeration consisting of fifty different locations. The mission of Piedmont HealthCare is to provide excellent and innovative medical care and service to remain the region’s premier provider of integrated, high quality, state-of-the-art patient care. The healthcare system includes five hospitals including the flagship hospital; the Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, and a tertiary care facility which has almost 500 beds. The health care group has recently gone through a change in order to improve the quality of healthcare being received by the patient. This change involves hiring Kevin Brown as the new President of the Piedmont Healthcare group, taking steps to reduce health care costs, and improve operational and strategic challenges.

Environmental Analysis

The environmental analysis is simply an evaluation of the environment of the business and the factors impacting different processes within the environment. When the factors impacting the environment are identified, strategies are developed to mitigate the negative impact and to ensure the positive impact continues. The purpose of the environmental analysis is to identify potential threats or opportunities to the business in order to assist the business in future business strategy (O’Farrell 2013). The results of the environmental analysis are used for future strategy development and decision making.

During the strategic management process managers used the data generated by the environmental analysis to develop strategies to reduce the risk that is identified or to take advantage of the identified opportunities. In the case of Piedmont high costs have resulted in unhappy patients but the high quality of the healthcare has created a great opportunity. Future planning for the health care organization is dependent on the results of the environmental analysis. When creating the future strategic plan to address the identified strengths and weaknesses there are legal and regulatory issues that must be addressed. These issues will come to surface once the analysis is complete. Ethical issues can potentially surface when legal and regulatory issues are not addressed.

Internal Strengths and Weaknesses

Piedmont Healthcare is successful in delivering quality healthcare to their patients. The primary purpose of the health care organization is to serve patients through the provision of the highest quality care in a patient friendly, safe and compassionate manner (Piedmont, 2014). The health care organization is committed to providing only the most talented and skilled physicians and health care staff. The organization provides patients with many different specialties and practices to meet the needs of many different types of patients with many different medical needs. The health care organization is committed to employing the best practices and developing more innovative approaches to medicine.

Potential weaknesses of the organization involve the high cost of health care and weakness in the collaboration of health care facilities within the health care system. Mark Cohen, Vice President of Quality Control discusses the current challenges which include high healthcare costs, IT challenges, physician satisfaction, and staff satisfaction (Hagland, 2013). The organization also needs to establish a more effective patient-centered medical home program and more efficient IT functions to improve efficiency and reduce error.

Opportunities and Threats

Piedmont Healthcare is made up of the main hospital, Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, a 488-bed tertiary care facility, as well as four community hospitals (Hagland, 2014). One opportunity the organization has failed to capitalize on is outpatient services. When patients are hospitalized for surgeries and procedures the cost of health care sky rockets. Outpatient services reduce the cost to the patient and add an entirely new function that will bring in more revenue for the organization. The patients can be in an out of the hospital though the outpatient services in just a few hours instead of staying in the hospital overnight.

Lowering costs to the patient will also increase revenue. The new president of Kevin Brown’s top strategic priorities will be managing Piedmont in a lower-cost world to increase the value to the patient (Karkaria, 2013). If the health care organization cannot get the price down then the patients will turn to the competition. While the economy is not in the state as it was several years ago it is still vulnerable for going back into a recession. If that is the case only health care organizations capable of lowering cost will survive.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths: Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, a 488-bed tertiary care facility, as well as four community hospitals, 500 employed physicians, and 700 affiliated physicians (Hagland, 2014). The organization offers 26 different specialties and 50 convenient locations. Hospital is known for the delivery of quality health care.

Weaknesses: The Piedmont healthcare organization has a lack of outpatient services which have become a popular way for treating many medical issues eliminating the need for hospital stays. This has led to higher costs for the patient. IT challenges have also plagued the organization needing a more effective approach in order improve efficiency and assist in lowering costs. Physician and staff satisfaction is another issue plaguing the health care organization.

Opportunities: Establishment of outpatient services at each of the five hospitals to help in drastically reducing costs to the hospital which will translate into a reduction in costs for the patient. Healthcare organization has highly skilled and talented medical staff to assist in the success of the new outpatient programs.

Weaknesses: a high number of physician and staff are currently dissatisfied with the health care organization and cost to the patient are high.

Present and Prospective Customers

Piedmont Healthcare organization serves the Atlanta area. Patients are citizens from the community in need of quality health care. They consist of consumers from all different backgrounds and incomes but many lower income patients or patients without insurance will chose lower cost or charity hospitals. In order to increase the number of patients at the different hospitals new patients will need to be attracted through lowered costs and the new outpatient services the hospitals will offer.

External Factors

Consumer and social: the consumer is provided with quality health care but high costs can result in consumers choosing alternative health care facilities.

Competitive: the high costs at Piedmont have resulted in a loss of customers to the competition as well as a lack of outpatient services.

Technological: technology has changed how all health care facilities approach administrative tasks and organizing patient files. Piedmont needs to become more efficient in there IT function including developing effective security to block potential external security threats.

Economic: past economic struggles have resulted in a loss of revenue and a need to develop a new more effective strategy for attracting patients.

Legal and regulatory: New health care laws have created challenges for all health care organizations resulting in the need for organizational change in order to adapt.

Assessment

Piedmont has been successful for decades at meeting the needs of their patients and will be successful in meeting their mission and vision. New challenges are quickly being addressed through a change in the leadership and effective strategic approaches. The new president recognizes the need to lower costs to stay competitive in the new health care environment and to meet the needs of the Affordable Care Act. This challenge can be met by implementing outpatient’s services at all five hospitals and reducing the number of patients staying overnight. Patients will continue to receive access to high quality healthcare at lower costs.

Secondly costs can be lowered through more effective IT systems which will improve efficiency. Physician and staff satisfaction will be increased through competitive salaries and open door communication policies. Piedmont healthcare systems respond to internal and external changes and challenges by addressing them head on and completing environmental anaysis when necessary.

Goals and Objectives

· Lower costs to the patient without reducing the quality of the healthcare being received.

· Establish outpatient services at each of the five hospitals and encourage the use of the services as an alternative to overnight stays unless absolutely necessary.

· Address IT challenges to improve administrative efficiency

· Increase physician and staff satisfaction by increasing salaries and establishing an open door policy for communication. Hospital administration will be open to new ideas and suggestions by staff.

· Implement new and innovative medical services and programs

· Adhere to the new policies and rules of the Affordable Care Act

References

Hagland, M. (2014). Quality Improvement at Piedmont Healthcare. Retrieved July 3, 2014 from

http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/2014/06/10/quality-improvement-at-piedmont-health

Karkaria, U. (2013). New Piedmont CEO on the job. Retrieved July 3, 2013 from

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/print-edition/2013/05/17/new-piedmont-ceo

O’Farrell, R. (2013). Environmental Business Analysis. Retrieved July 3, 2014 from

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/environmental-business-analysis-43238.html

Piedmont Healthcare. (2014). Overview of company. Retrieved July 4, 2014 from

http://www.piedmonthealthcare.com/services/