This week you will continue to work on the Strategic Plan Template. It is important to review the feedback from your faculty each week and incorporate their feedback into your template. Complete the Part 2 Market & SWOT Analysis for The New Hospital.

Based on the review of the The New Hospital 5-Year Strategic Plan Scenario, conduct a SWOT analysis to generate a list of perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats for the hospital.

• Strengths and weaknesses are traits internal to the hospital (e.g., strong physician loyalty to the hospital, aging building, and availability of financial resources).
• Opportunities and threats are external to the hospital (e.g., a mall facility available for lease or a competitor hospital opening two physician practices in your market).

Complete the SWOT analysis for the Phoenix Hospital 5-Year Strategic Plan Scenario. Include the following in your SWOT analysis:

• A list of perceived strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
  • At least 3 items in the SWOT analysis must be related to technology, regulatory, and financials.
  • You have been provided one section for each SWOT area. If you would like to add additional items to SWOT sections, please add additional line items to the table.
• An analysis of the information from the strategic decision-making scenario that supports the SWOT analysis items

5-year Strategic Plan Scenario

Background

The New Hospital is a 180-bed acute care hospital that is qualified as a not-for-profit facility. The hospital was originally owned by the county and transferred status to an independent facility three years ago. The hospital receives no external funding from governmental agencies for operations. The hospital is accredited by The Joint Commission and received re-accreditation during its triannual survey last year. The hospital has an aggressive quality management program and a low volume of medical malpractice claims. The hospital is located in Bedford, which is a city of 50,000 with 80,000 in the regional market. The hospital provides a general range of acute care services including medical/surgical, rehab, and emergency care. The president of the hospital has asked you to lead the development of a 5-year strategic plan for the hospital. You will use data provided in this scenario to make your decisions and recommendations.

Payment: There is a continued focus on pay for performance and increased wellness programs. Health care reform has created more covered lives; however, there are often high deductibles. The median household income for county residents is $59,548. On average, households in the county earn more than the state median household income of $44,446 and more than the national average of $53,650. The addition of a new automotive manufacturing plant to the local market this coming year is projected to add 1,500 production line jobs and 300 administrative jobs by year-end. Median income for the production positions is estimated at $45,000 and will provide health, vision, and dental insurance benefits.

Employers: There is expected growth in large employers with the addition of an automotive factory in the northwest sector of the county.

Staffing: Staffing has remained stable for the past year. The only difficulty is that there are not sufficient nurses cross-trained to work in the intensive care unit, so expensive agency nurses have been used periodically to fill this gap in the ICU.

Physicians: The continued shortage of medical staff, especially in orthopedics, oncology, and primary care, will require increased recruitment efforts.

Competitors: The other hospital in county, Hanover County Hospital, updated its facility and has drawn more market share.

Technology: The addition of e-visits by a large hospital system in an adjoining county has drawn more market share to their physician practices. The hospital has one MRI unit that is seven years old and is beginning to experience more downtime and needs more frequent repairs. This downtime has caused some scheduling delays for patients, and medical staff are voicing their concern. The hospital has implemented the first phase of an electronic medical records system, which includes patient records for medical units and lab and radiology reporting. Specialized components of the system for OB documentation and oncology documentation have not yet been purchased. The emergency department provides EMS ambulance service to the county and has two ambulances. One ambulance is five years old and the second is eight years old with 187,000 miles on it. The cardiology department has one cardiac catheterization lab in good working condition. Demand for Cath Lab time has increased, but there have been delays because of limited Cath Lab trained staff and only having one Cath Lab available. The front lobby of the hospital is in disrepair with worn tile flooring and aged lobby furniture. An employee gym was created several years ago but only contains one treadmill and a few weights. Staff have complained that there is not better gym equipment.

Regulatory Changes: Health care reform has increased the number of patients with some form of insurance payment. These patients are now seeking care in greater numbers from a primary care physician. Phoenix Hospital currently struggles with accommodating patient scheduling requests to establish care with a primary care physician. Accreditation requirements for the coming year are changing to require CPOE (computerized physician order entry) in the medical record. The current electronic medical record system has not required CPOE, and staff regulations have accommodated verbal orders to nurses on a routine basis. During the last Joint Commission survey, the hospital was cited for not having fire sprinkler heads in one patient care unit of the hospital. Installation cost is estimated at $50,000. During the last Joint Commission survey, the hospital was cited for not demonstrating sufficient training of staff for emergency preparedness and disaster drills. The State Department of Health has issued a new regulation that requires all hospital management personnel to have documented active shooter training once per year, beginning this coming year.