I’ve been thinking a lot about how much transparency can impact the success of a clinical program and how it transforms the way hospitals conduct strategic planning for a service line. It used to be that hospitals prioritized strategic initiatives based on clinical strength, community need, profitability, technical capability and volume forecasts. That approach used to make sense, but now that information about hospital outcomes, patient satisfaction and physician ratings are easily available online, strategic initiatives have to focus on providing value for patients. Think about it. Patients are starting to demand value. They are making decisions based on value, especially if they have a consumer driven health plan with high deductibles and co-payments.

You can ensure your strategic plan is centered on providing value by incorporating the principles of value-based competition into your service line development. Here they are:

• The focus should be on value for patients, not just lowering costs.
• Competition must be based on results.
• Competition should center on medical conditions over the full cycle of care.
• In the end, high-quality care should be less costly.
• Value must be driven by provider experience, scale, and learning at the medical condition level.
• Competition should be regional and national, not just local.
• Results information to support value-based competition must be widely available.
• Innovations that increase value must be strongly rewarded.

If anyone reading this has first-hand success using this approach, please share your experiences with our readers.

Is the recession reshaping your organization’s thinking? I hope so. I read an article recently that said recessions are an important time to pull your head up and say this is a good time for planning efforts. When the dust settles on this economic crisis, how will the healthcare market reemerge? More importantly, how will your company or hospital reemerge? How will it be positioned? What will be its niche?

Analysts are predicting that 2009 will be a year when strong hospitals get stronger and weak hospitals get weaker and/or die. Sure, it doesn’t seem logical, but one of the most important things an organization can do during an economic downturn is to strengthen its positioning. For my health’s sake, I sure hope the best providers out there are doing that.