Case Study Description of Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care
Reading Rehab Hospital has experimented with a popular new concept in health care--patient-focused care--intended to increase quality and reduce costs by organizing care delivery around particular diagnoses or "service lines," rather than around the functions or disciplines of the care providers. It is equivalent to product rather than process focus. Rehabilitation involves multiple disciplines which must share information about their evaluations of the patient, about planned treatments, and about patient progress. The decisions and actions of one care provider depend on those of another. This case illustrates the effects of a problem fundamental to service operations--variable demand and the limitations of organizing production by service lines under conditions of uncertain demand, due to the loss of pooling. Finally, its methods, for achieving the coordination benefits of service lines under conditions where the level or stability of demand is insufficient to justify the use of service lines.
Swot Analysis of "Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care" written by Jody Hoffer Gittell, Mason Brown includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Care Patient facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Marketing and Technology & Operations.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care casestudy better are - – digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, customer relationship management is fast transforming because of increasing concerns over data privacy, increasing transportation and logistics costs, increasing household debt because of falling income levels, wage bills are increasing, technology disruption,
cloud computing is disrupting traditional business models, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Care Patient, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Care Patient operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Care Patient
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Technology & Operations field.
4. Making a Technology & Operations topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Care Patient
Strengths Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Care Patient in Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care Harvard Business Review case study are -
Successful track record of launching new products
– Care Patient has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Care Patient has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Strong track record of project management
– Care Patient is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Technology & Operations industry
– Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Care Patient to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Technology & Operations industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Care Patient to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Care Patient is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Care Patient in the segment is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Training and development
– Care Patient has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Care Patient has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Care Patient are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Care Patient in the sector have low bargaining power. Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Care Patient to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Analytics focus
– Care Patient is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Jody Hoffer Gittell, Mason Brown can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Innovation driven organization
– Care Patient is one of the most innovative firm in sector. Manager in Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care Harvard Business Review case study can use Clayton Christensen Disruptive Innovation strategies to further increase the scale of innovtions in the organization.
Weaknesses Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care are -
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Care Patient has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Care Patient has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Care Patient has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Care Patient is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Care Patient is planning to shift buying processes online.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jody Hoffer Gittell, Mason Brown suggests that, Care Patient is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Care Patient has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Care Patient, firm in the HBR case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care HBR case study mentions - Care Patient takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
Employees’ incomplete understanding of strategy
– From the instances in the HBR case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care, it seems that the employees of Care Patient don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee as mentioned in the HBR case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care, is just above the industry average. Care Patient needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
Opportunities Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care are -
Leveraging digital technologies
– Care Patient can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Care Patient can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Technology & Operations segment.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Care Patient can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Care Patient operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Technology & Operations sector.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Care Patient has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Care Patient to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care case study. Care Patient can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Technology & Operations industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Care Patient can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Care Patient can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Technology & Operations industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Care Patient can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Care Patient can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Care Patient can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Care Patient to increase its market reach. Care Patient will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Care Patient to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Developing new processes and practices
– Care Patient can develop new processes and procedures in Technology & Operations industry using technology such as automation using artificial intelligence, real time transportation and products tracking, 3D modeling for concept development and new products pilot testing etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Care Patient can improve the customer journey of consumers in the industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care suggest that firm can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Care Patient can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Threats Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care are -
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Care Patient can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care .
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Care Patient in the Technology & Operations sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Care Patient demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care, Care Patient may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Technology & Operations .
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Care Patient needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Technology & Operations industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Care Patient is facing in Technology & Operations sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Increasing wage structure of Care Patient
– Post Covid-19 there is a sharp increase in the wages especially in the jobs that require interaction with people. The increasing wages can put downward pressure on the margins of Care Patient.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Environmental challenges
– Care Patient needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Care Patient can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Technology & Operations industry.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Technology & Operations field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Care Patient can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Care Patient.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Care Patient can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Reading Rehabilitation Hospital: Implementing Patient-Focused Care is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Care Patient needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.