Assessing Your Situation – Organizational Assessment

The first step in developing an acquisition and affiliation strategy is to assess the strategic vision and goals of your organization, its financial and market position, and current readiness to meet its goals. Answers to the questions below will help identify the strengths and weaknesses of your current situation and begin to define your organization’s needs to meet its goals.

Strategic Vision and Goals

• What has your organization articulated as its strategic priorities? What is/are your organization’s business or businesses? How have answers to these questions changed, or how do you predict they might change, in light of emerging market pressures?
• What are your organization’s long-term goals in terms of care delivery, operational performance, community service, brand reputation, other?
• How willing, and capable, is your organization to take risks to accomplish this emerging vision?
• Is your organization willing to change its tax status, or affiliate with organizations of a different tax status, to accomplish these goals?
• Can your organization accomplish its strategic priorities on its own, or is there a need to be part of a larger organization in order to be successful?

Financial Position

• How solid is your organization’s financial position in terms of ability to meet capital requirements in the future? Why?
• Has financial performance been improving, steady, or deteriorating? Why?
• How does your organization anticipate that market trends will affect utilization and future financial performance? Can your operating margin and balance sheet weather these projected changes?
• What is the growth trajectory for your business, and what are your investment needs to support this growth?
• What are your organization’s key strategies to improve financial performance?
• How important is it to your organization to diversify sources of revenue? Why?
• Is your organization financially positioned to consider acquisition of another organization? Will it need to consider being acquired to meet its financial needs?

Market Position

• What is your organization’s estimated market share? Is it improving, flat or decreasing? What are the underlying reasons?
• What estimated market share do you think you need to be successful in the future?
• How well does your organization meet your community’s needs for hospital services? How do you know?
• Where is your organization ranked in your marketplace on the basis of:
  • Service
  • Clinical Quality
  • Cost to Care Purchasers

Physician Network

• How strong is your existing physician network?
  • Do you have an adequate base of primary care providers to meet current and projected future needs?
  • Do you have the right mix and number of specialists to meet current and projected future needs?

   

• Are there opportunities in your market(s) to align with additional primary care or specialist practices to meet your current and projected needs?

Current Readiness

• What are your organization’s internal strengths and weaknesses?
• Do you have the right executive team and board members in place to position for the future? If not, what types of people do you need?
• How well does your organization understand the health needs of your patient population? What investments will help you manage these needs?
• What capabilities does your organization have to improve care delivery processes and outcomes? What track record does your organization have?
• Has your organization been able to make significant cost reductions in any of its service lines or clinical processes? If not, what are the barriers to achieving cost reductions?
• How capable is your organization of change? How do you know? How has leadership enabled flexibility, or made it more difficult to achieve?
• How prepared is your organization to accept contracts involving value-based reimbursement?

Tool: Special Considerations for Different Organization Types

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