SWOT Analysis for Stevens District Hospital

SWOT Analysis for Stevens District Hospital

Stevens District Hospital currently released its strategic plan. The facility is a 162-bed acute care hospital with a mission of providing high-quality care, comprehensive services, and exceptional services. The hospital looks to expand its scope to six family practice physicians, specialists in cardiology, oncology, and women’s services in 5 years. Currently, the hospital has three family physicians, one obstetrician, one medical oncologist, and one non-invasive cardiologist.

The financial goal of Steven’s District Hospital

The strengths of the facility lie within its dominating market coverage within the last five years. The market trend, as projected five years ago, reflect trust and preference by the community. Besides, the facility also enjoys relatively fair HCAHPS scores, which they would improve by relative adjustment. The hospital should realize comprehensive care if it can achieve a score of 95% in all aspects of the HCAHPS scores. The facility needs to work aggressively on patient satisfaction (Kapoor et al. 2016).

The baseline financial weakness of the facility is influenced by the drop in market volume in contrast to its competitors (Dur-Schmid and O 201). The hospital dominated the market five years ago by 48%, which has dropped to 35%. The market distribution has been taken over by the dominant competitor since its renovation. A significant weakness of the company is due to loss of financial support from the county to independent owners who are likely financially struggling. The hospital is likely to experience an increase in patient volume due to the continuing growth of chronic illnesses. For instance, diabetes should leap from 5% to 12%, and heart diseases from 12% to 22%. Therefore, the hospital needs to employ more cardiologists and family physicians to take advantage of the projected market trend. Other opportunities include the expected increase in the employment and income rates of the residents, thus increasing the number of residents who will become Medicare eligible.

Therefore, the hospital should bring more significant shareholders. The financial support for the organization should leap by at least 40% for the projected five-year period. Similarly, the hospital should realize a 30% increase in the volume of patients within three years. The facility should thus be able to accommodate more patients and come up with policies that support Medicare. The financial projection of the company should increase by 60% within the five years, which include more shareholders, and an increase in the volume of patients. Moreover, the facility should regain its dominance in the market share within five years.

Legal or regulatory goal

Since the health care reform through the Affordable Care Act has increased the number of patients with an insurance payment, the hospital is experiencing an increase in the number of patients attending primary care. The hospital needs to regulate the number of patients attending primary care to realize its mission of providing comprehensive care. Therefore, the hospital needs to establish policies that limit the use of the insurance policy for primary care. For example, the hospital can regulate the method of insurance payment by creating a system that dictates that insurance can only cover 40% of primary care expenses within the facility. Likely, to realize comprehensive care, insurance should be used primarily for chronic care and patients in critical care support.

Additionally, the hospital is experiencing challenges for skilled sourcing personnel. From the review of the previous strategic plan, the hospital had a goal of recruiting three family physicians. In the accomplishments, the hospital was able to recruit only one family physician. Therefore, the facility needs to establish a regulatory policy that dictates that the facility needs to employ at least one family physician, oncologist, cardiologist, and women’s specialist annually. Such a system will be significant for the facility since it is looking to expand its scope of services in the next five years by employing six family physicians, oncologists, cardiologists, and women’s specialist (Scholten et al. 2012).

For progress analysis, the facility has to achieve 60% of its goals within the next three years. This means that the facility should have employed at least four family physicians, oncologists, cardiologists, and women’s services in the next three years. Similarly, the facility should be, by the same time, realizing an even spread of the use of insurance policies across several other departments. The hospital shall have completed its goal of comprehensive and quality care if it shall have employed six cardiologists, oncologists, women’s services, and family physicians by the end of the five years.

Risk or Quality Management goal

Risk and quality management should be a significant concern for the hospital if it is going to achieve its objectives and goals (Kounis and L 2018). Contemporary measures advocate for identifying risks during the preliminary stages of the strategic plan. As a result, the facility should assess its capacity to provide quality care that meets client satisfaction. Besides, the hospital should consider the potential impact the changes will have on the hospital, which comprises contingency plans where necessary.

Therefore, an influx in the volume of patients may compromise the goal of the hospital in achieving comprehensive and quality care. Thus, the hospital needs to have a contingency of accommodating the number of patients due to improved care. As a result, one of the strategic plans of the hospital should be increasing the size of the facility. The size should comprise the number of beds, employing more nurses that would handle the large volume. Furthermore, the hospital should be ready to provide sufficient medical equipment in response to the number of patients that would attend the facility should it meet its objectives.

Since the hospital is seeking to employ more personnel, the hospital should also source for sufficient funding to achieve its goals. Funds should be available to ensure that the new medical staff are sufficiently paid and are satisfied. Additional options for increasing staff satisfaction include housing and transport (David et al. 2019)

In summary, the hospital should, by the end of the second strategic year, increase the bed number by at least 25%. Likely, an additional 30% more nursing staff by the third strategic year will be a significant indicator. The hospital should have a long term objective of expanding the facility. Additional wards for oncology and cardiology will be an inevitable requirement. Lastly, the administration of the hospital should bring more stakeholders on board to source for sufficient funding for activities of the facility. By the end of the five years, the facility should realize a 30% increase in the number of beds. Therefore, the HCAHPS scores of the hospital should not be below the 95th percentile, including patient satisfaction in the inpatient and primary care.

References

Kounis, L. (Ed.). (2018). Quality Management Systems: A Selective Presentation of Case-studies Showcasing Its Evolution. BoD–Books on Demand.

David, F. R., & David, F. R. (2019). Strategic management: A competitive advantage approach, concepts, and cases. Pearson.

Dur-Schmid, O. (2017). Case study and comparative strategic analysis of Roche AG and Health’s Angels.

Kapoor, R., Tan-Koi, W. C., & Teo, Y. Y. (2016). Role of pharmacogenetics in public health and clinical health care: a SWOT analysis. European Journal of Human Genetics, 24(12), 1651.

Van Wijngaarden, J. D., Scholten, G. R., & van Wijk, K. P. (2012). Strategic analysis for health care organizations: the suitability of the SWOT‐analysis. The International Journal of health planning and management, 27(1), 34-49.