The healthcare industry is undergoing incredible changes. Age old industry rules and structures are being supplanted by innovators meeting the consumer and purchasers' demands.
In this industry turmoil, the role of the traditional health system as the coordinator and provider of a community's care is being challenged. As such, most health system strategic plans are now focused on issues of market relevance and building the necessary capabilities to survive in a consumer-health management world.
Below we offer four tips to strengthen your health system's market relevance.
Tip 1: Take and Outside-In Perspective
It is less important to understand what you think of the market than what the market things of you. While this seems like an obvious statement, it is often missed especially in times when the old industry structures are being supplanted by new demands and participants. Don't assume you know what the market thinks of you. Don't assume the market agrees with your opinion of the upstart industry players that are changing the rules. Instead, step back and find the data to show you what the patients, providers, insurance companies, healthcare purchasers, and consumers think of your organization and ask how that is changing over time.
Tip 2: Change the Definition
Patient-centered care was all anyone spoke about five years ago. From a treatment point of view, this belief can be very powerful. However, it discounts the needs of the individuals that are not yet patients. For most of the population born after 1960, and for nearly 90% of all healthcare interactions including substantially all outpatient, primary care, elective procedures, and medical treatment, the interaction more closely resemble a retailer-consumer relationship than a physician-patient relationship.
Whereas the patient is a person with a clinical disease that defines what needs to be treated or managed, a healthcare consumer is a person with a clinical disease and self-defined needs that both shape how they want to be treated or managed. As such, changing the perspective from only seeing patients to seeing healthcare consumers and patients can radically change how your organization presents itself to the customers.
Tip 3: Focus on the First Healthcare Touch Points
Along with shifting the view from patient to consumer, changing when your organization connects with the healthcare consumer can radically influence your market relevance and the capabilities your organization needs. Today health systems often attempt to connect with populations once they are sick. At this stage, the individuals and organizations upstream have already influenced how the healthcare consumer will connect with one or more systems of care. Those health systems that want to influence a population's connection to a system of care must also move upstream to connect with the individual at their first healthcare touch point. This means significant investments in primary care, urgent care, emergency rooms, virtual care platforms, retail medicine and employer based care. With these tools, implemented correctly, the health system moves from someplace you need when you are really sick to an organization you trust to address your health consumer needs.
Tip 4: Build the Ambulatory Network and Price Appropriately
97% of all healthcare delivery is done in the ambulatory setting. Today health systems benefit from being able to charge three or four times as much as non-hospital department ambulatory services. While this is very financially beneficial in the short term, it creates large incentives for the purchasers to find alternatives. With the growth of high-deductible health plans, the consumers are also becoming the purchasers. Moreover, risk-shifting reimbursement models make the provider the purchaser. All these combined threaten the health system's market relevance unless they build the alternative low-cost ambulatory options.
Summary
Health systems cannot assume they are relevant because they exist. Like a participant in any industry upheaval, health systems must constantly be adapting to the market changes and meeting consumer demands. In a time of change, building new capabilities and strengthening market relevance are the keys to creating effective models and continued organizational growth.
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