Health systems must accurately assess their organizational, medical staff and market characteristics before developing an orthopedic service line strategy. A whitepaper by New Heights Group outlines 15 questions hospitals and health systems should ask in determining their orthopedic strategy
• What is your strategic objective in orthopedics? Are you looking to grow volume, broaden your market reach, become the dominant player and/or position for accepting financial risk?
• Are you introducing a new organizational model (service line structure) as part of the orthopedic strategy?
• What components of the continuum of care do you operate internally? Will you need to add to the continuum to complete your orthopedic service line?
• How efficient is your surgical suite?
• Do you have the decision support capabilities to fully evaluate service line performance? Are your cost and financial reports reliable at the service line level? By DRG? By physician?
• How do you fare on standard quality metrics? Is there considerably variation by physician? What are your patients saying about their orthopedic experiences?
• Do your orthopedic surgeons split their practice between your facility and competitors and/or do they operate competing services of their own? Do you have multiple orthopedic groups practicing at your hospital and how do these groups get along?
• How much trust is there between hospital administration and your orthopedic group(s)? Have they taken leadership positions within your organization, or indicated an interest in developing new programs and capabilities?
• Do you have a full complement of orthopedic subspecialists on your staff, such as joint replacement, sports medicine, foot/ankle, hand, spine, etc.?
• What is your staff depth in the subspecialty areas? For example, do you have just a few sports medicine specialists and just one joint replacement specialist?
• Are there one or more "star" physicians on your orthopedic staff? Is the reputation local, regional or national?
• Do your orthopedic patients come from a broader or smaller service area than your entire organization? Is there an opportunity to change this, expanding the orthopedic draw?
• What is your current and historical market position? What do your primary care physicians think of your orthopedic services?
• What is the competitive landscape in orthopedics? What differentiate the market leader(s)?
• Do demographic trends point to any specific niches within orthopedics that might be opportunities for differentiating your service? For example, a young population is associated with sports medicine, vs. total joint for an older population.
To view the original whitepaper in its entirety, click here.
Key Specialties Roundtable: What's in Store for Service Lines and Their Leaders in 2013?
Organizational characteristics
Questions related to organizational strategy and capabilities include:• What is your strategic objective in orthopedics? Are you looking to grow volume, broaden your market reach, become the dominant player and/or position for accepting financial risk?
• Are you introducing a new organizational model (service line structure) as part of the orthopedic strategy?
• What components of the continuum of care do you operate internally? Will you need to add to the continuum to complete your orthopedic service line?
• How efficient is your surgical suite?
• Do you have the decision support capabilities to fully evaluate service line performance? Are your cost and financial reports reliable at the service line level? By DRG? By physician?
• How do you fare on standard quality metrics? Is there considerably variation by physician? What are your patients saying about their orthopedic experiences?
Medical staff characteristics
Questions related to medical staff characteristics include:• Do your orthopedic surgeons split their practice between your facility and competitors and/or do they operate competing services of their own? Do you have multiple orthopedic groups practicing at your hospital and how do these groups get along?
• How much trust is there between hospital administration and your orthopedic group(s)? Have they taken leadership positions within your organization, or indicated an interest in developing new programs and capabilities?
• Do you have a full complement of orthopedic subspecialists on your staff, such as joint replacement, sports medicine, foot/ankle, hand, spine, etc.?
• What is your staff depth in the subspecialty areas? For example, do you have just a few sports medicine specialists and just one joint replacement specialist?
• Are there one or more "star" physicians on your orthopedic staff? Is the reputation local, regional or national?
Market characteristics
Questions related to market characteristics include:• Do your orthopedic patients come from a broader or smaller service area than your entire organization? Is there an opportunity to change this, expanding the orthopedic draw?
• What is your current and historical market position? What do your primary care physicians think of your orthopedic services?
• What is the competitive landscape in orthopedics? What differentiate the market leader(s)?
• Do demographic trends point to any specific niches within orthopedics that might be opportunities for differentiating your service? For example, a young population is associated with sports medicine, vs. total joint for an older population.
To view the original whitepaper in its entirety, click here.
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