There is an old adage in the retail business, “It’s about Location, Location, Location”. The point is simple. To succeed in retail, you store has to be in a good location for your customers. For rural hospitals, it’s about Services, Services, Services.
The point is just as simple. In order to sustain long-term growth and profitability, rural hospitals must provide the services their communities need.
As administrators and community leaders, it is important to ask the question, “Are we providing the services the community needs?” This question is especially important for hospitals who are facing declining patient volumes or struggling to maintain profitability.
However, the question about services isn’t just about adding services. It’s also about subtracting services. The makeup of communities shift over time, as do the medical services the community members need. Services that were highly demanded 10 years ago may need to be eliminated in favor of new medical services.
Finding the right balance isn’t allows easy and making the decision to cancel a service is even more difficult. However, in today’s market, rural hospitals have to accept the financial reality that they cannot afford to provide every service a community needs or keep medical services that aren’t as highly used.
The key to long-term profitability and growth is to find the balance where your hospital is providing the most important and most used medical services the community needs. This will keep your patient volumes up and allow for sustained profitability.
To learn more about how NewLight Healthcare helps struggling hospitals return to profitability, click here to read our latest case study.