In the first post in this series we touched on the idea of using a data-driven approach to evaluate your current portfolio of locations and what service lines you offer in each of those locations.
But in order to perform any valid evaluation of your portfolio and jump the first hurdle in optimizing your facilities, you need to understand demand.
The meaning of demand in this instance is three-fold. It’s understanding the demand for each particular service line you offer, understanding the type of people who demand those service lines and how patients differ depending on service line. For example, the best types of potential patient households for pediatrics will typically be different than the potential patient households for orthopedics.
While that might be an extreme example, there are still many different types of people that consume healthcare and have different healthcare needs.
And once you determine consumer demand for the particular services that you offer in each of your location’s trade areas, you can make sure you are aligning your facilities and your services in the areas that have the highest demand for those particular services.
Know Demand, Know if Your Facilities are in the Right Locations
Understanding who your current and potential patients are, how they live their lives and the particular service lines they want is the first step in the process of assessing whether or not your facilities are in the right locations.
One thing to keep in mind when evaluating existing – and new – sites is that the old axiom of “location, location, location” no longer applies like it once did. It no longer translates into great site selection.
In our minds, a facility’s performance – whether it be success or failure – is based on the new axiom of “patient, patient, patient” or “consumer, consumer, consumer.”
You could have a great building with a great lease term, but ultimately, if there aren’t enough of the right kind of patients or potential patients for a particular service line living in close proximity to that facility, it doesn’t matter how great your real estate deal was. It doesn’t matter how cheap your rent is. It’s still going to be really hard to be successful in that location.
That’s why you’ve got to align your facilities so they’re as close as possible to the highest concentrations of your potential patients.
This leads us into the next topic of discussion – evaluating whether your service lines match the medical needs in the location’s trade area to determine if you’re offering the right services at each facility.
And like we said before, if you don’t want to wait until the next post, let’s talk today about how a data-driven solution can maximize your assets.