Individual Learning Project 1: OhioHealthShiree MooreBUSI 601Liberty UniversityFebruary 16, 2018DescriptionOhioHealth is a nationwide recognized, not-for-profit, charitable, healthcare outreach of the United Methodist Church. Truven Health Analytics has acknowledged OhioHealth as one of the top five large health systems in America, an honor they have received six times. OhioHealth is also been acknowledged by Fortune as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” for eleven years in a row (2007-2017). There are approximately 29,000 associates, physicians and volunteers, and a system that includes eleven hospitals, 200 plus ambulatory sites, hospice, home health, medical equipment and other health services spanning throughout 47 counties in Ohio.Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats In this section the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of OhioHealth will be covered. According to Blocher, Stout, Juras & Cokins (2016) “SWOT analysis is a systematic procedure for identifying a firm’s critical success factors” (p.

35). As time moves forward, healthcare is becoming a greater concern and there is additional competition and self-regulation. Health care leaders seek to find more strategic tools to stay competitive and the SWOT analysis can assist with a competitive advantage (van Wijngaarden, Scholten & van Wijk, 2012). “Conducting a SWOT analysis does not mean that analyzing these factors will ensure the success of one’s company” (Hicks, 2010). See Appendix A for the SWOT analysis of OhioHealth will assist with the overall success of this organization. One of the strengths that OhioHealth expends is that they offer low costs to the community.

OhioHealth offers a multitude of ways to pay for services rendered at the hospital. OhioHealth offers financial assistance for the patients that meet certain criteria to help them with their medical bills. They work with patients to set up payment plans and choose codes that are covered by insurance companies (Lindsay Fouts, personal communication, February 13, 2018). A weakness that is a distress to OhioHealth is the Emergency Department wait times and they continue to increase. It is not uncommon that a patient could wait up to six hours before being seen. When a patient comes to the Emergency Department, they will register and then a nurse will call them back to be triaged. If the patient is not distressed they will be go back to the waiting area until a physician is available to see them.

Many patients become upset due to the long wait times (Tonya Burdette, personal communication, February 13, 2018). OhioHealth has seen much success because of the opportunities that they have. The most significant opportunity that OhioHealth has is the growth opportunity they have in the community. In May 2017, OhioHealth merged with University Medical Associates and has been able to offer many more services including specialty groups as well as urgent care facilities. In turn, this increases revenue for OhioHealth and gives them the opportunity to supply more services for the community. OhioHealth is known for their state of the art equipment and they continue to stay knowledgeable about new technology to offer patients the best service (Tonya Burdette, personal communication, February 13, 2018).

One of the greatest threats that OhioHealth encounters is uncompensated care, there are still many patients that do not have health insurance. OhioHealth offers different levels of financial assistance and discounted prices for patients that do not have insurance or for patients that cannot cover their co-pays (Lindsay Fouts, personal communication, February 13, 2018). Balanced Score Card Many companies use balanced score cards to have certain forms of structure within the organization. When an organization does not use a balanced score card it was found that their success rate is low compared to what it could have been if using a balanced score card (Shojaei, Ghochani & Mottaghi, 2013). There are four areas on a balanced scorecard that refer to the organizations critical success factors and they include: financial performance, customer satisfaction, internal processes, learning, and growth (Blocher et al.

, 2016). For OhioHealth to continue their success the following balanced score card found in Appendix B should be used. Discussion of Critical Success Factors Chosen This section of the paper will explain what critical success factors were chosen, why they were selected and why they are important in accessing the success at OhioHealth. Critical success factors consist of financial and nonfinancial measures (Blocher et al.

, 2016). These measurements are critical to OhioHealth’s competitive advantage and to their success. The first area of the balanced score card includes the financial outline. Two of the critical success factors in this section are; produce revenue to create future developments and payment cycle reduced for patients. It is essential to produce revenue in any organization. By generating more revenue, it can open more doors for development within the organization. With generating revenue to create future developments as a critical success factor, it will enable OhioHealth to be able to know how well the organization is satisfying the community. Payment cycle reduced for patients as a critical success factor will help OhioHealth increase cash flow.

Simple solutions, such as online bill pay is a vital tool for OhioHealth to offer to decrease account receivable days. Reimbursement will be enhanced and collection costs will decrease by a patient having access to online bill pay. The second part of the balanced score card includes customer satisfaction. By measuring customer satisfaction, areas such as quality, service, and costs will be covered to designate how well OhioHealth gratifies its customers. Customer satisfaction is a huge critical success factor because the patients are the customers. The customers are the ones who choose where they want to go and whose care they choose.

If their needs are met, they will continue to choose services with OhioHealth. Again, the Emergency Department is a major disadvantage when it comes to customer satisfaction. Many patients use the ED as their primary place of care, which causes long wait times for patients that do have emergencies.

By offering customer satisfaction surveys OhioHealth will be able to decide which areas should be addressed and fixed. The third section of the balanced score card includes internal processes. This area includes the amount of time it takes to triage a patient in the emergency department. It will also cover the amount of medication errors that may occur within the hospital. A patient can become frustrated if they are waiting long periods waiting for the nurse to triage them. If they are seen by the nurse within the first half an hour of their visit, they feel as if they are important and they are receiving the care that they need. When working in a hospital it is important to do multiple checks each time a medication is given. It should first be checked when it is taken off the shelf/out of cabinet, it should be checked again when drawing the medication up and again when given to the patient.

In some cases, there are mistakes that are made due to nurses being busy and in a hurry because of multiple job duties. Efficiency and effectiveness should be deliberate to produce quality of care. The last part of the balanced score card includes learning and growth. Having learning and growth charted on the scorecard will allow the organization to meet their goals.

The critical success factor of this area will involve keeping employees satisfied and help decrease turnover rate, which is the “number of employees who voluntarily leave the company/total number of employees” (Blocher et al., 2016, p. 706). When an employee is content at their place of workplace, they will choose to stay there and they will become assets for the organization. Evaluation In this section, an evaluation of the organization will be completed to determine if they are achieving all of the critical success factors. An analysis of each critical success factor will be done and data will be used to measure what has been indicated on the balanced score card. Generating revenue to create future developments is the first critical success factor that will be discussed.

OhioHealth has found many ways to keep revenue producing so they can develop other care centers. OhioHealth focuses on the continuum of care. According to Herman (2011), the complete continuum of care needs to be looked at by a hospital if they plan to stay profitable. To fill this need OhioHealth must plan accordingly, starting at the admission of the patient, how and what services are provided for the patient with quality to decrease the possibility of re-admission and appropriate and quick discharge. According to the data that OhioHealth has generated on re-admissions they have successfully implemented this aspect of the balanced score card (Tonya Burdette, personal communication, February 13, 2018). The next critical success factor that is recorded under the financial aspect of the balance card is payment cycle reduced for patients.

OhioHealth has been doing this and is still in a working progress to continue to decrease the days in accounts receivable. OhioHealth offers online bill pay that allows patients to have access to pay their bill 24 hours a day, seven days a week. OhioHealth still has patients that are unable to pay and are working on other ways to decrease this.

By offering patients, more ways to pay their bills they are able to improve their reimbursement rates and their collection costs also decrease. Customer service is a critical success factor under the perspective customer satisfaction. In order to know how satisfied customers/patients are with their visits surveys are done.

The key to customer satisfaction is communication. A patient needs to know their importance and know that the staff cares for them and is paying attention to them. It is important for a patient to realize that the staff has the best interest for them. By keeping the patients updated continuously during their stay at the hospital will help increase their satisfaction. When surveys are completed, they are then analyzed to find what areas the patients are most concerned about. It was found that communication was the biggest factor that patients were concerned about (Tonya Burdette, personal communication, February 13, 2018). Most were not satisfied by the provider coming in and talking with them and then later the nurse coming in and not knowing what the provider talked about with the patient. Therefore, a system was put to use in the electronic health record (EHR) where the physician will chart notes on a particular patient and the nurse has access to these notes.

The nurse will look over these notes before entering a patients room so if they physician and nurse do not have time to talk about the patient they will both be on the same page by looking in the EHR (Tonya Burdette, personal communication, February 13, 2018). The next perspective is internal control. Under this is best quality of services offered and medication errors. OhioHealth takes every initiative to offer exactly what the patient needs so they will not have to travel to other facilities for care. The most recent aspect that OhioHealth has been reviewing is the time it takes to triage a patient in the emergency department.

At times patients will become upset if they have been sitting in the waiting room for extended periods after registering. Because of this OhioHealth has been looking at different options to speed up the triage process in the ED. At this time, OhioHealth has nurses that work as needed and part of this reason is to have more staff available if the ED becomes more busy than anticipated. As for medication errors, guidelines have been set for physicians, pharmacists, and nurses to follow to decrease medication errors. The most critical success factor for the learning and growth perspective with OhioHealth is to keep the employees and to keep them motivated. OhioHealth tries to offer exceptional benefits and give different incentives to their employees.

OhioHealth also offers discounted care on certain services for their employees. When there is an employee high turnover rate it will cost the organization money and time by losing them. The term “burnout” is usually associated with the turnover rate in hospitals. “Burnout” refers to an employee working too many or being stressed beyond means (Tonya Burdette, personal communication, February 13, 2013).

In order for OhioHealth to keep a low turnover rate, employees are offered inspiration points. An employee can earn points for stepping up and going above and beyond for patients or co-workers. Employees can then use their points for merchandise of their choice.

Conclusion OhioHealth continues to grow and the success of the organization should be credited to the care that they offer to their patients. OhioHealth takes initiative to offer excellent services at a reasonable cost. OhioHealth cares about their community and takes pride in hospitality. Because OhioHealth uses strategic tools in their company, the overall success has increased and OhioHealth is able to offer a wide range of services for their patients. ReferencesBlocher, E., Stout, D.

, Juras, P. ; Cokins, G. (2016). Cost management: A strategic emphasis (7th ed.). Boston, MA: McGraw-HillHerman, B. (n.d.

). 10 Ways for Hospitals and health Systems to Increase Profitability in 2012. Retrieved July 24, 2016, from http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/10-ways- for-hospitals-and-health-systems-to-increase-profitability-in-2012.

htmlHicks, M. (2010). Accounting for decision making. Raleigh, NC: SynergisticShojaei, M., Ghochani, S. ; Mottaghi, M. (2013).

Combining dynamic system and balanced score card (BSC) in performance evaluation (case study: Mahan plan company). International Journal of Information, Business and Management, 5(2), p. 69-80Van Wijngaarden, J., Scholten, G. ; van Wijk, K. (2012).

Strategic analysis for health care organizations: the suitability of the SWOT analysis. The International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 27(1), p. 34-49Appendix A: SWOT Analysis OhioHealth Appendix B: Balanced Score CardMission: To improve the health of those we serve (OhioHealth, 2018). Vision: Where people want to work, where physicians want to practice and, most importantly, where patients want to go when they need healthcare services.

Perspective Critical Success Factor (CSF) MeasurementFinancial Produce revenue to create future developmentsPayment cycle reduced for patients Revenue increase over previous year. Days in A/R.Customer Customer Service Patient satisfaction survey.Daily census.Internal Process Best quality of services offered Time it takes to triage a patient in the ER.Medication Errors.Learning and Growth Retain Staff and Keep them motivated Turnover rate.Employee satisfaction.