Introduction
After 47 years in business, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare Corp. (THC) has grown into a network of 79 hospitals, 20 short-stay surgical hospitals, and more than 470 outpatient centers in addition to nine facilities in the United Kingdom. As of 2015, it has 130,000 employees in its healthcare network. Three years ago, it acquired for $4.3 billion the Vanguard Health Systems (VHS) (Jacobson, 2013), which Charles Martin Jr. founded in Nashville, Tennessee in 1997 and has a network of more than 26 healthcare institutions, which are a combination of acute care and specialty hospitals in five states: Illinois (Chicago); Arizona (Phoenix); Texas (San Antonio); Michigan (Detroit); and Massachusetts (VHS, 2011). THC has an annual revenue of.
This brief strategic review will provide a briefer on VHS and its potential interaction with the anticipated healthcare needs of its markets in the next decade (2016-2025), including a concise strategic plan to address this future market challenge.
Tenet Healthcare in brief
THC is ardent in its fundamental focus on “safety, quality, service, and value” in delivering the best patient care it can possibly do (THC, 2015). In safety, it is committed to a goal of ZERO harm to its patients. It recognizes personnel who take initiative in catching or terminating a process that leads to a medical error. It also strives for high-quality care, leveraging best practices and striving for unending improvement each day. Moreover, it equates quality service and value with the patients’ perceived positive experience of healthcare, committed in creating a patient-centered environment to create such exceptional experience. Overall, THC established clinical care standards and safeguards that eliminate harm to patients; improve care quality; enhance patient service experience; support operational growth and cost reduction; and effective management of health populations (THC, 2015).
Health care needs in the next century (2016-2025)
American patients in the next 10 years are expected to behave as true customers, expecting to be provided options, better information and data about their conditions, and best treatment possible at their most convenient in terms of cost, time, and place (Deloitte, 2014). They will embrace preventive lifestyle and, when ill, demands for specific treatments they are well-informed of. They expect better healthcare service outcomes at their highest possible, paying only partly for their healthcare needs. In fact, Deloitte ventured to anticipate that patients, who will be getting more knowledgeable and health savvy, many of them will even become better informed than their doctors.
As the patient-provider interaction grows into a web-based channel power by more sophisticated information technology, concerns of data privacy and security will become paramount (Deloitte, 2014). A new norm of medicine will be highly predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory in nature with increased influential power from patient advocates.
Strategic plan
Network growth: The THC growth into new markets had been driven by opportunities of acquiring very strong positions in those markets or at least a clear path towards building these strong positions (Jacobson, 2013). With its takeover of VHS, it became first or second in 19 markets as of 2013 with 70 percent market share in regions where it operates. Its expansion strategy will continue to be predominantly acquisition based, particularly of existing healthcare systems that are first or second in their respective markets. In this manner, THC will continue to keep its market domination as it brings up less competitive components of the network into better performance levels.
Nurse staffing: In the THC, nurses are at the heart of its patient care services (THC, 2015). In partnership with the Human Resources, the Patient Care Services is developing the organization’s capability “to recruit and retain highly qualified nurses” (THC, 2015). Regardless of the regional origins of its nurses, THC nurses unanimously believe that their choice of work in healthcare is motivated by their desire to care about people, about their patients. The nursing staff are individually accountable for the patient experience and must deliver a ‘wow factor’ to the patients in addition to a reliable safety safeguards. It is from this philosophical trajectory that THC is aligning its nurse staffing strategy in the next 10 years.
Resource management: THC follows a philosophy of ensuring that their key services providers, such as physicians and nurses, are provided the necessary support in order to focus on what matters most to the healthcare network – its patients (THC, 2015). For instance, the network established the Tenet Physician Resources (TPR) to provide valuable support to its physicians by taking over the day-to-day administrative functions to leave more time and energy to focus in serving the patients. It also increase its physician resources when opportunity comes with physicians who share with them the Tenet values of “quality, integrity, service, innovation, and transparency” (THC, 2015). In order to enhance the professional growth of its medical assistance, it will continue its Medical Assistant Credentialing Program. Its current and future resource management will follow the lead of available quality candidates for its physician and non-physician healthcare providers – the right human resource for the right care at the right time. And where potentials are available, THC does not hesitate to support their professional development. The objective of resource management will be to anticipate the needs of Tenet care providers in real time through prior authorization procedures, concurrent needs review, and effective transition of care at patient discharge (THC, 2015).
Patient satisfaction: THC will utilize a 360-degree review of care in the areas of case management, utilization management, and provider networks alignment to ensure a reliable, high-quality patient care (THC, 2015). All interventions utilized in case management will be employed to overcome real-time barriers to patient treatment that can lead to their inappropriate or increased use. It must ensure that an integrated (medication therapy plus case) case management works synergistically in unloading care services to patients without any duplication. Moreover, utilization management must be aimed at identifying healthcare personnel needs in real time as indicated in the previous subsection. Beyond this, THC aligns with its network of healthcare components, such as hospitals, urgent care centers, surgery centers, and outpatient primary facilities to ensure patient support on care needs at pre-hospital and post-discharge environments. It can be accomplished through a creative use of its health plans.
Conclusion
The general impression obtained from this review describes a healthcare systems that had patient care ideals in the right place and time while working on its operational implementation in order to put flesh into these ideals through a patient-centered quality care service culture with relatively healthy attitude towards the care of its medical and non-medical staff. Much of its growth had been driven with strategic acquisition of strong providers in various markets where they have either an existent or non-existent healthcare components. Thus, a large part of the strategic plan described in this review essentially reflects the current thrust within the THC system with initial implementations already on. Nevertheless, necessary improvements in its processes needs to be continually informed by newly discovered best practices. Thus, despite the grounds that THC has already covered, optimization remains a challenge to address progressively and from greater collective experiences.
References
Deloitte. (2014). Healthcare and life sciences predictions 2020: A bold future? London: Deloitte
Centre for Health Solutions.
Jacobson, G. (2013, October 1). Tenet completes $4.3 billion acquisition of Vanguard Health
System. The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved from: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/health-care/20131001-tenet-completes-4.3-billion-acquisition-of-vanguard-health-systems.ece.
VHS. (2011, September 1). Valley Baptist Health System and Vanguard Health Systems finalize
joint venture. Nashville, TN: Vanguard Health Systems. Retrieved from: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045829/000104582911000067/exhibit99_1.htm.
