Maximize Your Ambulatory Network Footprint
Roadmap for Decision Making
As healthcare services continue to shift from inpatient to outpatient settings, the demands of the stakeholders only increase. Ambulatory services and facilities need to meet the consumers' expectations of maximum convenience and comfort, the providers' need for quality and efficiency, and the payers' demand for lower cost settings.
Yet the strain on capital and resources has never been greater. Now more than ever, it is important to evaluate all options for creating the optimal ambulatory network for your market. This means:
Assessing the potential of your existing sites -
- A comprehensive assessment of your current ambulatory network can identify opportunities to expand service capacity, improve operational efficiencies through consolidation, upgrade facilities to better meet patient and physician expectations, and enhance your brand in the market. The assessment can also identify where you may need to exit a facility or market because it no longer supports your strategies.
Identifying the right services and locations for new facilities -
- Planning your ambulatory network today involves aligning the interests of numerous constituencies who need to come together to form a seamless continuum of services. These can include hospital-based services, outpatient services, employed physicians, independent physicians and third-party specialty operators, among others. For each market and service line within a Hospital's network, these interests need to be balanced against the market need, and ultimately economics. It helps to "think retail" when it comes to choosing a new location - visibility, convenience, ingress/egress, etc.
Designing more operationally efficient facilities -
- As reimbursements continue to decline, providers are increasingly focused on reducing operating expenses. Planning new facilities can provide the ideal opportunity to redesign operations for more efficiency and throughput. Each new facility and space needs to be planned with an understanding of the clinical and financial impacts of the evolving delivery of care.
Identifying a development partner who can provide turnkey services, including funding -
- Select a firm with all the professional disciplines required to plan, design, develop, finance, construct, lease and syndicate outpatient facilities.
Hospitals should view their ambulatory network as a retail delivery model. Evaluate your existing footprint and same store ROI before making any decisions on expansions. And when you expand, make sure that you have the right partners who can help you develop the most patient friendly and efficient facility, and bring the right capital resources to support your project.