Essay Example on Stevens District Hospital Aims to Increase Market Share, Improve Operating Margin

Introduction

Over the past two years, Stevens District Hospital has been aiming to increase its market share in the county. For it to achieve this objective, it has plans of embracing a three-family practice physician. To achieve this, it has the primary goal of improving its operating margin by an estimated value of 3%. The improved operating margin largely depends upon the HCAHPS scores of the hospital. Therefore, Stevens District Hospital also targets improvement in the HCAHPS scores by 5% (Gurel, & Tat, 2017). All these improvements are financial oriented. Thus, Stevens District Hospitals envision an improved operating margin to counter the stiff competition from other hospitals in the county.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Upon achieving the goal of improved margin, Stevens District Hospital sees itself enhancing health by offering high-quality care for both the physicians and the patients. The improved operating margins allow it to provide a comprehensive range of exceptional services. Thus, the goal helps Stevens District Hospital to accomplish its mission. Its vision, which is to be a health provider of choice for both patients and physicians is possible upon achieving this goal.

It is necessary to measure the progress of this goal. To measure the development of the operating margin of Stevens District Hospital, we can analyze its market share. We check the market share of Stevens District Hospital which was at 35 during the last evaluation. An improvement will be seen in the market share if it shows an increase market share in this district of about 5%. The assessment can be conducted on annual or a half-year basis. Any results obtained contrary to this will indicate a decline in the market share, which will mean that Stevens District Hospital was not effective in achieving this goal (Gurel, & Tat, 2017). Therefore, the financial goal is achieved through improved operating margins of Stevens District Hospital.

Legal or Regulatory Goal

The Affordable Care Act has made a significant reform in health care (Beland, Rocco, & Waddan, 2019). One of the outcomes of the change is an increase in the number of patients that subscribe to various forms of insurance payment. As a result, a large number of patients in recent days seeking primary care physician in Stevens District Hospital has shoot tremendously. Therefore, the hospital is struggling to absorb patients scheduling requests to obtain care from a primary care physician.

To counter this shift, Stevens District Hospital has put in place some regulatory goals. The main statutory goal is the improvement in service delivery from Stevens District Hospital through technological advancement and stuffing. The prolonged deficiency of medical staff mostly in orthopedics, oncology, and primary care makes it necessary for Stevens District Hospital to increase recruitment. Besides, competitors to Stevens District Hospital are employing the most recent technologies in their operations (Collins, Gunja, Doty, & Beutel, 2017). For example, Hannover County Hospital making upgrades of their facilities including new wide-bore MRI machines. Some medical care in counties south of its location has implemented an electronic system that makes it possible for patients to communicate with the hospital electronically. They have introduced an E-visit mechanism with their specialties. This affects Stevens District Hospital negatively by siphoning from Stevens District Hospital. They have a mindset of improved or higher quality services in the technologically advanced hospital. Thus, they see patient satisfaction in these competing hospitals.

Stevens District Hospital is now embracing the technological regulations as its operational goal. It is seeking to employ improved technology. It has already set in place means to acquire the relevant technology necessary for this. It is also implementing and increasing the use of EMR (Park, Sharma, Poulis, & Noble, 2017). In a move to curb the negative impact from the competitors, it is renovating physician lounge that seeks to improve marketing for specific services provided by the hospital. Thus, Stevens District Hospital is purchasing computers and tablets for its physician, which they will see for EMR rounding.

Improved technology is essential for providing high-quality care. Through this advanced technology, Stevens District Hospital can offer a wide range of services. Thus, Stevens District Hospital can fully achieve its mission by incorporating and improving EMR in its operations. With time, it will be able to meet its vision of being a health care provider of

The risk or Quality Management

The main chance that Stevens District Hospital experiences are stiff competition. Other minor threats to the hospital are increased cases of chronic disease, making development in care management model necessary. The ability to provide quality health care is also affected by the unemployment in the county which is estimated to be 9.9% (Gurel & Tat, 2017). Therefore, risk and quality management are necessary for Stevens District Hospital for it to achieve its mission and visions.

Stevens District Hospital needs to pay a lot more attention to the operations of its competitors. Competitors offer credible information for improvement and development of any organization. Stevens District Hospital has to do an extensive review and comparison of services. It has to examine the services it provides, the process it uses to provide these services, and compare that with those from competitors. By so doing, it will be able get credible information on the needs of the patients. It will also be able to explore any untapped opportunities available in the market. For example, the Retail Pharmacy is providing acuity visits. These competitors are providing an additional instant clinic in the county. This information is essential. It offers new opportunities for Stevens District Hospital to explore for it to prevent patients shifting from its primary care to Retail Pharmacy. Nevertheless, Stevens District Hospital has to make significant developments in its technology as well as quality management environment.

Stevens District Hospital aims to be a health care provider of choice in the county for both the physicians and patients. To achieve this mission, risk assessment and quality management are essential. In assessing the risk environment created by competitors, Stevens District Hospital can determine and explore strategies that improve patients' satisfaction. Customer satisfaction triggers regular returns. Technological advancement, coupled with proper management helps in creating an attractive picture for the hospital (Gurel & Tat, 2017). Thus, the physicians will be happy and proud to associate with Stevens District Hospital. Therefore, it will help Stevens District Hospital to meet both its vision and mission.

Goals on risk and quality management are sometimes the hardest to assess because they deal with external factors of the business. Stevens District Hospital can evaluate its ability to meet this goal on milestone basis. The milestones will comprise of examining the behavior of patients in terms of reduction or increase. The hospital can do this either twice a year or on yearly basis. It can also have means of getting direct feedback from the clients. They can do this either by having an online platform where they interact directly with customers obtaining their feedback. They can also have some form of questionnaires where patients can record their experiences in terms of quality management. Those patients who have been to competing health care providers can also register their skills with the competitors. This will provide Stevens District Hospital with the most credible information upon which it can draw its improvement plants. Nevertheless, Stevens District Hospital has to focus more on technological development to attract more patients to its facility.

References

Beland, D., Rocco, P., & Waddan, A. (2019). Policy Feedback and the Politics of the Affordable Care Act. Policy Studies Journal, 47(2), 395-422. https://doi.org/10.1111/psj.12286

Collins, S. R., Gunja, M. Z., Doty, M. M., & Beutel, S. (2017). How the Affordable Care Act has improved Americans' ability to buy health insurance on their own. Retrieved March 29, 2017.

Park, J. S., Sharma, R. A., Poulis, B., & Noble, J. (2017). Barriers to electronic medical record implementation: a comparison between ophthalmology and other surgical specialties in Canada. Canadian Journal of Ophthalmology, 52(5), 503-507. doi: 10.1016/j.jcjo.2017.02.018.

Gurel, E., & Tat, M. (2017). SWOT analysis: A theoretical review. Journal of International Social Research, 10(51). Retrieved from: file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/gurel_emetswot.pdf