SWOT analysis for healthcare organizations

Introduction
The main objective of this assignment is to conduct a SWOT analysis for a healthcare organization. Essentially, SWOT analysis is a beneficial framework for scrutinizing an organization’s strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats experienced. It is beneficial in being aware of the weaknesses and emphasizing on the strengths, alleviating threats, and capitalizing on the opportunities accessible. SWOT analysis lays emphasis on the internal factors of an environment, which are the strengths and weaknesses and the external factors of an environment, which are the opportunities and threats (Hill and Jones, 2011). Notably, these strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats ought to be examined in relation to the needs and competition within the market. Basically, SWOT analysis enables the company to ascertain its strong suits and the areas that necessitate enhancements (Hill et al., 2014). The healthcare organization selected in Cleveland Clinic. It is a healthcare organization that was founded in 1921 and is situated in Cleveland in the state of Ohio. It has since then grown to be one the biggest and most renowned hospitals in the nation. The mission of the organization is to provide better healthcare for the sick individuals, examine into their problems and advance education for the physicians and nurses (Cleveland Clinic, 2018).
SWOT Analysis
The following analysis is the SWOT analysis for Cleveland Clinic.
Strengths
Weaknesses
1. Brand name
2. Status
3. Ethics
4. Efficacious Quality Management
5. Constant Innovation
1. Complexity
2. High cost of health care
3. Lack of standardization
4. Ineffective documentation practices
5. Use of different software
6. Lack of standard patient charge master
Opportunities
Threats
1. Mergers and Acquisition
2. Bargaining Power
3. Organizational Improvement
4. IT alignment
1. Poor economy
2. Change in payment structure
3. Decreased monitoring
4. Ambiguity in the future direction
5. New regulations
Strengths
Strengths delineate what an entity prospers at and separates it from the rivals in the market place. Some of these strengths comprise of aspects such as strong brand, loyal consumer base, distinctive technology and others. The following are the strengths of Cleveland Clinic.
1. Brand name
One of the key strong suits of this healthcare organization is its brand name. Cleveland Clinic has grown to become a renowned brand name not only in the United States but across the globe. Aside from having a huge consumer base, the company is able to charge greater prices on its product offerings for the reason that consumers place extra value in its brand name.
2. Status
Cleveland Clinic has a reputable status with respect to healthcare provision. Notably, it is ranked as the best hospital in the entire state of Ohio and also the Cleveland Metropolitan area. In the same manner, the hospital is ranked as the second best health care organization in the nation based on reports. This implies that patients are inclined to seek medical services from the healthcare organization. In the same manner, physicians are inclined to work within such a renowned hospital.
3. Ethics
Another strong suit of the healthcare organization is ethics. Notably, the Ethisphere Institute has ranked Cleveland Clinic as one of the most ethical corporations in the globe. Specifically, the organization has been ranked sixth for the past 8 years. This prize shows the organization’s pledge to undertake what is right, whether it is for the caregivers, the patients, the community or for the organization as a whole. Furthermore, the healthcare organization is devoted to transparency, social responsibility, environmental stewardship and also ethical decision making in all aspects of the entity. In recent years, Cleveland Clinic has set up programs that manage possible conflicts of interest, provide transparency on the industry associations of physicians and researchers, openly report clinical results and promote ecologically friendly building and sustainability programs (Cleveland Clinic, 2018).
4. Efficacious Quality Management
The Cleveland Clinic has made significant endeavors to ensure there is effective quality management and patient safety. Specifically, the healthcare organization has developed a Quality and Patient Safety Institute. The institute basically lays emphasis on reconnecting quality and patient safety with clinical care. This working together supports the devotion of Cleveland Clinic’s health system to quality and patient care, which is in line with key healthcare initiatives across the world. Cleveland Clinic has continuously been a strong supporter of notifying individuals regarding about specific data associated to finding quality hospital care (Nadzam et al., 2005). The healthcare organization believes that knowledgeable patients have the capacity to participate better in their individual care. Furthermore, the hospital offers comprehensive information and data to assist patients and their physicians make well-versed decisions about treatment for a wide-range of medical diseases and conditions (Cleveland Clinic, 2018).
5. Constant Innovation
Technology continues to advance in a significantly rapid rate, which facilitates the company in better ways of making improved and more effective product offerings
Innovation is another major strength of Cleveland Clinic. The healthcare organization has a culture of innovation that naturally cultivates and advances a significant extent of discussion regarding cutting edge technologies that change the healthcare sector as a whole and those that will have significant impact. Imperatively, the clinicians and researchers at Cleveland Clinic have major zeal for ensuring the patients get the best care through the state of the art medical technologies. Furthermore, these clinicians and researchers incessantly work towards unveiling new technologies and capitalizing on them to ensure that the medical care rendered to patients is of high quality (Spitzer, 2017).
Weaknesses
Weaknesses hamper a firm from performing are attaining its optimum level. Basically, these are the areas in which the organization needs to improve in order to continue being competitive and succeed within the marketplace. The following are the weaknesses of Cleveland Clinic.
1. Complexity
Cleveland Clinic as a whole is a massive intricate health care system comprising of numerous areas of disconnect. This results in ineffective provision of health care service because such disconnect results in lengthier patient waiting to obtain assistance, longer patient stays and also mix ups in processes and procedures.
2. High cost of health care
One of the shortcomings takes into account the high cost of healthcare. This is especially linked to the health care services rendered through expensive procedures such as imaging and laboratory testing. This deters some patients from seeking care from the hospital. In addition, the increasing cost of healthcare in the United States is negatively hampering the health care organizations. This is largely for the reason that patients are less inclined to visit hospitals owing to the high expenses that they will be forced to pay.
3. Lack of standardization
Another major drawback is the lack of standardization of healthcare equipment and supplies. This is in the sense that throughout the health system, it is possible to find different system hospitals paying differing prices for the similar product or equipment from the similar vendor. At the end of the day, this not only negatively affects the healthcare organization but also hampers the patients seeking medical services as they pay for such extra costs.
4. Ineffective documentation practices
A key weakness that is presently being faced by Cleveland Clinic is ineffective documentation procedures and practices undertaken by the physicians. This results in poorer rating in terms of patient acuity, the apportioned length of stay for the patient, in addition to the compensation amounts for the patient population.
5. Use of different software
Despite the fact that the healthcare organization has made advancements from using physical records that can easily get lost or destroyed and shifted to electronic records, there is the downside that not all facilities make use of the same electronic medical record software. The impact of this is that it results in incompatibility when patients records are being transferred therefore resulting in decreased efficiency within the hospital (Kim, Coiera and Magrabi, 2017). Furthermore, with the complexity of these software functionalities, there are arising concerns regarding the level of efficiency, safety and reliability (Jetley et al., 2013).
6. Lack of standard patient charge master
Another weakness is that there is no standard patient charge master for the entire health system. It is imperative to note that the hospital charge master encompasses the manner in which providers convey medical bills to both payers and patients. The chargemaster captures the charges of every medical procedure, service, supply, prescription drug, and diagnostic test provided at the hospital, in addition to any fees associated with services, such as equipment fees and room charges. Therefore, the lack of a standard charge master means there is the likelihood of inaccuracy thereby hampering revenue integrity. This means that it can lead to either overpayment or underpayment in addition to claim rejections, undercharging for medical services and compliance violations (RevCycle Intelligence, 2018).
Opportunities
Opportunities take into account favorable external factors that a firm can capitalize on and take advantage of to hand it a competitive advantage. The following are the opportunities of Cleveland Clinic.
1. Mergers and Acquisition
Cleveland Clinic has the prime opportunity to continue partaking in mergers and acquisitions of the hospitals within the area in order to increase and proliferate patient referrals as well as increase the size of the patient population that is being provided with healthcare service. Furthermore, such mergers and acquisitions will be beneficial in empowering the level of research and development in healthcare, which can be important in coming up with significant breakthroughs in healthcare necessities such as cures. There is also the need for the quest for economies of scale, the capability to cut unit costs or increase productivity and outcomes by means of increased volumes. It can be deemed by Cleveland Clinic merging with or acquiring other hospitals, health system investments in technology, quality development, supplementary services, or shared services can be spread across a wide-ranging base post-transaction (Deloitte, 2018). The organization has the opportunity to make acquisitions of other companies to increase its economies of scale. In addition, the company has the ability to expand its business revenue to a global scale and drive its revenue levels.
2. Bargaining Power
The healthcare organization has the opportunity of undertaking the standardization of its equipment, medical apparatus in addition to medical supplies across the healthcare system in order to take full advantage of the bargaining power of the supply chain.
3. Organizational Improvement
Cleveland Clinic has the prospect of improving as an organization in its entirety. Basically, this can be attained through increased physician cognizance of the right and proper document procedure to enhance acuity rating, apportioned length of patient stay, and increase reimbursement amounts to the hospital.
4. IT alignment
The advancement in technology is one of the aspects that the healthcare organization can capitalize on to advance the medical services rendered. In the contemporary, the use of physical documents and records is deteriorating owing to the advancement in electronic medical records. Taking this into consideration, the healthcare organization has the opportunity to align the electronic medical record into one program as a whole. This approach of streamlining will make sure that the organization is more effective in its everyday operations. It is also imperative to embrace and implement a healthcare information technology approach or method that is centered on best engineering practices to make certain that the likelihood of any defect or malfunction in these systems and devices is alleviated (Jetley et al., 2013).
Threats
Threats take into account the factors that have the potential to negatively impact the organization and hamper its success. The following are the threats of Cleveland Clinic.
1. Poor economy
One of the key threats that the healthcare organization faces is the increasing number of Medicaid and uninsured patients that walk into the hospital owing to the poor economic status of Cleveland. It is impossible for the hospital to provide treatment to all of these patients and at the same time become sustainable.
2. Change in payment structure
There is also the threat of the alteration in the payment structure from one that is fee-for-service reimbursement to one that is value driven reimbursement system. Rather than being remunerated based on the number of visits and tests they order, providers’ payments are now centered on the value of care they deliver. One of the key challenges is that tracking performance is problematic because it necessitates keeping track of two largely dissimilar payment systems concurrently. In addition, the transition negatively impacts the procedure volume and the revenue generated by the healthcare organization (Brown and Crapo, 2014).
3. Decreased monitoring
Cleveland Clinic also faces the challenge of lacking the capacity to monitor as well as control patient activity and being ensuring compliance subsequent to their discharge. The downside to this is that it can eventually result in patient readmission and generates payment penalties and charges on reimbursement from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
4. Ambiguity in the future direction
In recent times, there have been significant changes in healthcare legislation with numerous reforms taking place. Specifically, the Trump Administration has brought in numerous changes within the healthcare sector that largely impacts healthcare organizations. There continues to be ambiguity in terms of the path that the healthcare sector with take in the future, which implies that healthcare institutions such as Cleveland Clinic are left with uncertainty on what will take place.
5. New regulations
Healthcare organizations within the nation continue to face the threat of the incessantly changing Joint Commission rules and regulations together with the costs that are linked with remaining in compliance with such rules and regulations.










References
Brown, B., & Crapo, J. (2014). The key to transitioning from fee-for-service to value-based reimbursement. Health Catalyst.
Cleveland Clinic. (2018). About the Quality & Patient Safety Institute. Retrieved 12 September, 2018 from: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/departments/patient-experience/depts/quality-patient-safety/about
Cleveland Clinic. (2018). Cleveland Clinic Named One of World’s Most Ethical Companies. Retrieved 12 September, 2018 from: https://newsroom.clevelandclinic.org/2018/02/12/cleveland-clinic-named-one-of-worlds-most-ethical-companies/
Deloitte. (2018). Hospital M&A: When done well, M&A can achieve valuable outcomes. Retrieved 12 September, 2018 from: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/us/Documents/life-sciences-health-care/us-lshc-hospital-mergers-and-acquisitions.pdf
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Hill, C., & Jones, G. (2011). Essentials of strategic management. Nelson Education.
Jetley, R., Sudarsan, S., Sampath, R., & Ramaswamy, S. (2013, February). Medical Software–Issues and Best Practices. In International Conference on Distributed Computing and Internet Technology (pp. 69-91). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Kim, M. O., Coiera, E., & Magrabi, F. (2017). Problems with health information technology and their effects on care delivery and patient outcomes: a systematic review. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 24(2), 246-250.
Nadzam, D. M., Atkins, P. M., Waggoner, D. M., & Shonk, R. (2005). Cleveland clinic health system: A comprehensive framework for a health system patient safety initiative. Quality Management in Healthcare, 14(2), 80-90.
RevCycle Intelligence. (2018). The Role of the Hospital Chargemaster in Revenue Cycle Management. Retrieved 12 September, 2018 from: https://revcycleintelligence.com/features/the-role-of-the-hospital-chargemaster-in-revenue-cycle-management
Spitzer, J. (2017). Cleveland Clinic lists top 10 medical innovations to shape 2018. Vecker Hospital Review. Retrieved 12 September, 2018 from: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/cleveland-clinic-lists-top-10-medical-innovations-to-shape-2018.html