Environmental Factors
Like any business, Boca Raton Ambulatory Surgical Center has specific environmental factors which help play out our strategic plans. We use each factor in order to visually see what can be a threat to our business or a great opportunity for success. The environmental factors we focus on as a health care organization consist of different categories that better explain what is surrounding our market.
One way to see who we are offering our services to is by looking into the demographics found in our location. Our ambulatory surgery center is located in Boca Raton, Florida. Boca Raton is home to 98,150 people which consists of 52% female and 49% male with an average age of 46 years old. Majority of the population is centered at a bachelor’s degree level or above earning a median annual income of about $73,000. Taking into consideration our location, while our surgical center offers all types of services, we mainly focus on plastic surgery as well as spinal surgery. This is due to such high demand, for both services, from wealthy elderly people.
Another factor we have to focus on is the economy and how it will affect our industry. Increased taxes may play a role in high costs for surgical procedures and inflation rates can affect our earnings causing employment and unemployment levels to shift.
Under the political aspect, our company focuses on monitoring the trends of the government during elections. It is important for us to research each politician and make sure to follow the election results. Knowing where each politician stands when it comes to health care opinions, we are able to see what laws or regulations they plan on adding or eliminating which may impact our industry. Some things that might be a part of discussion can be what certain ambulatory procedures they are allowing reimbursement on if you have Medicaid or Medicare, which is funded by the government. We also have to make sure to know which procedures are deemed legal by law and which aren’t. This allows us to offer all legal procedures and follow protocol. By making sure all actions taken in our ambulatory center follow legal protocol, we are also focusing on legal factors. As a health care center, we make sure to be in compliance with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), which is the United States legislation that provides data privacy and security provisions for safeguarding medical information. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which examines, tests, and approves a wide range of items for medical use, including drugs and medical appliances. FDA approval means that the FDA has decided the benefits of the approved items outweigh the potential risks they might face. Agency for Health Care Administration, which is responsible for Medicaid in the state of Florida. Medicaid is the medical assistance program that provides access to health care for low-income families and individuals. Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC), which is a private, non-profit organization formed in 1979. They are responsible for developing standards to advance and promote patient safety, quality care, and value for ambulatory health care through accreditation processes, education, and research.
One important factor is one which focuses on who represents our industry. We will make sure to obtain employees that are properly certified to practice medicine. We require certifications from the American Medical Association as well as the American Nursing Association. Not only will we hire our own employees, we will also hire employees through independent contractors. All our employees will be representing our company to suppliers and patients which will determine part of our success.
As technology advances, we plan on always offering new and improved technology in our surgical centers. It is important to stay up to date with medicine and technology when dealing with patients and important surgical procedures. Not only will we focus on offering all medical services with new medical equipment in the market. We will also make sure to upgrade our systems constantly in order to keep all patient information safe and in confidentiality. Upgrading patient information portals will help facilitate patient tracking and scheduling. It will also play a big role in setting up operations by allowing surgeons to have all information needed prior to each procedure.
Market
The Boca Raton Ambulatory Surgery Center market is outpatient surgery which is surgery that does not require an overnight hospital stay. We will focus on patients that want plastic and spine surgery and will diversify in different in other specialties later on when we start to grow the center. The patient we will focus on are mainly women and older patients as our targeted market.
We chose women because in the area we have a larger demographic of women which means a bigger pool of potential customers. In other words, women have a higher rate of having plastic surgery than men do when it comes to cosmetic procedures. Women in their 20s have done a total of 829,000 cosmetic procedures, with 256,000 being surgical and 572,000 minimally-invasive (Carson, 2018). This is only the younger demographic for women. The common type of surgery for women is breast augmentation and liposuction and a procedure that people call a tummy tuck or what it’s medically call an abdominoplasty.
We chose older people as a focus because of the demographics as Boca Raton is that the common median age is 46 years old. Which is why we chose to focus on spine surgery because as we get older and our body starts aging we have an increase in back discomfort. This may be due to disc or joint problems and the result of work or other physical activity. Back pain occurs for the first time when a person is over 55 years of age should always be taken more seriously as the likelihood of underlying illness is higher than in younger people (Back, n.d.). Which is why spine surgery can used to help treat the issues like Spinal Stenosis.
We also want to be competitive with other surgery centers in the area, so we want to hire board certified surgeries and offer payment with low interest rates and offer deals on surgeries like liposuction and tummy tuck. This way we can attract more potential customers to our center who want surgery but could not afford the prices other centers charge.
Strategic Objectives
The strategic objective for our surgery center is creating an attractive environment for physicians, increase communication with physicians, start or continue a dialogue with local hospitals, Find ways to increase profitability and Implement EMR.
The surgery center wants to attract board certified surgeons and to do that we want to create a place that has potential for physician growth, we make sure the surgery center is inviting and attractive to new surgeons. To optimize the surgeon’s experiences while they visit, give them access to facility parking and take them out to lunch. We want show surgeons that we have good working equipment, availability of adequate instrumentation, and an experienced staff are the most attractive to these board-certified surgeons.
We want to increase the communication between surgeons and open communication lines with all physicians to ensure they have the equipment they need to perform their surgeries at our facility. This way we can figure out what each surgeon needs, then we can budget for the new equipment or instrumentation. We can ask the surgeons if there is new instrumentation or imaging equipment that can increase the quality and the efficiency of the cases, they are involved in.
We want the surgery center to enter into a partnership, alignment or joint venture with local hospitals. We should start a dialogue about the best way for the two of us can collaborate on the treatment on surgery cases.
We want to increase to the profitability of our surgery center we have to find innovative ways to increase profitability in our center. Our staff members should be proficient in infection control, privacy, and security roles. The employees should be provided with opportunities to expand their skill sets which advance their career goals this way we can work smart by doing more with the resources we already have to save money. But we can innovate by diversifying our center in to other specialties that could make us a more profitable like Bariatric surgery which is surgery that helps you lose weight by changing how your stomach and small intestine handle the food you eat. After the surgery, your stomach will be smaller (Gastric, n.d).
The last strategic objective we have for the center is implementing electronic medical records, this way we can effectively allow communication and coordination among members of our staff for optimal patient care (What, n.d.).
Strategies for Success
After taking into consideration all aspects of the market internally and externally, we will make sure our organization is successful by closely monitoring each step taken to reach the companies goals. It is important for our company to have a clear understanding of what goals we are trying to achieve through the strategic plan. Being fully aware of any changes in the market will allow us to modify our company plans dramatically in order to maintain a successful business. We also plan on having quarterly employee evaluations to improve our patient care performance. This will help us determine if the way our patients are being cared for is acceptable since it can have a huge impact on the way our customers view us. Since the opinions of our patients and their families is what helps our company expand, we will conduct patient surveys after each consultation in order to obtain reviews of the services we have provided. This will allow us to see what we can improve on or what we are doing to offer excellent service to our patients.