Canyon Rim: Achieving our Goals, A Business Strategy

Executive Summary

Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) desires to be a leader in the healthcare industry using innovation and compassion in everything they do.

 Vision – Committed to quality

Mission Statement – A Reverence for life, and a heart for healing

Core Values – Integrity, Trust, Excellence, Accountability and Mutual Respect.

 Our plan over the next six months will be to increase our resident census by 15%, lower the employee turnover ratio to 85%, and, increase profit. We will do this by analyzing our needs and wants, and strengths and weaknesses as well as identifying our opportunities and threats. We will then create a detailed four step plan of execution. The Financial Officer will strengthen the finances by following variable spending and creating a database to easily track and forecast future spending to help increase profit. In order for this plan to succeed our key stakeholders must be involved. Stakeholders can help by using word of mouth advertising; as employees, residents, and resident’s families hear about the changes that are going to be made, they can talk with friends and neighbors in person and on social media. Resources that would be needed for this step to succeed are stakeholders that are excited about achieving our company goals and access to the internet. Increasing profit, will be managed by the Finance Officer. Resources they will use are inventory logs, ledgers to track spending, data analysis charts to project spending, quarterly communication with vendors to ensure that CRCC is receiving the best price for their services, and access to the profit and loss statement each month to track the overall spending for CRCC.

Canyon Rim: Achieving our Goals, A Business Strategy

Avalon Health Care Group (Avalon) is committed to quality and desires to be a leader in the healthcare industry using innovation and compassion in everything they do. Avalon requires their care professionals be actively engaged in professional development and encourage continuing education to improve the industry and the overall quality of care it provides its customers.

 Avalon’s care communities are assessed by the states where they are located yearly; in addition, they require their facilities to participate in the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) program Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI). The surveys are an integral part of maintaining a facilities licensure and quality rating with CMS. Because this is important to the success and operation of a facility Avalon care teams work together to develop better ways to provide care. Care teams also strive to develop ways to protect vulnerable patients from healthcare acquired issues such as falls, infections, decubitus ulcers, and patients that show signs of abuse or other trauma.

 Avalon’s mission statement, “We embrace a reverence for life and a heart for healing” (Avalon Healthcare Group, 2017) is also their core belief. This statement is the basis for every decision that Avalon makes for its staff, the residents, and the resident’s family.

 Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) is one of the care communities within the Avalon Healthcare Group I know because I work there. CRCC dedicates itself to providing quality twenty-four-hour care. They are a skilled nursing facility that provides long term care as well as short term rehabilitative care. Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) prides itself on being a secure facility, much like a gated community, the front door stays locked and visitors are required to sign a registry of who they are and who they are there to see; likewise, they are issued, and expected to wear, a visitor badge.

 Canyon Rim Care Center exemplifies the mission statement as it examines each new resident and as a clinical team determines the best course of care. Welcome meetings are held between staff and the newly admitted resident within 24 to 72 hours, dependent upon when the new resident is admitted. Quarterly meetings are held with residents to ensure all their needs are being met. At both the welcome and quarterly meetings family members are encouraged to attend so they can be informed.

CRCC’s main focus is on mental illness. Other than the State Hospital and two other hospitals in the area there is no desire from facilities to take care of these types of patients. CRCC is setting a standard for skilled nursing facilities and is creating a program to help people with mental illness cope with their day to day issues that may cause an impediment to their daily lives.

Analytical Tools

Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) utilizes three analytical tools: the MOST analysis, the MoSCoW tool, and the SWOT analysis. Each analytical tool builds on itself to narrow the strategic plans used to achieve organizational goals. CRCC begins with the MoSCoW tool; this analysis looks at what the organization Must Have (Mo), Should have (S), Could Have, (Co), and Won’t Have (W) (Block, Lau, Block, & Block, 2010). Once CRCC has decided what things must, and should, be done, and in what order they utilize the MOST analysis tool. The MOST analysis compares the goals to the mission (M), objective (O), previous and current strategies (S), and tactics they have used (T) (Block, Lau, Block, & Block, 2010). Once our organizational goals have been narrowed down to primary, secondary, and tertiary levels we will do a SWOT analysis to examine our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and, threats. Once an accurate SWOT analysis has been completed, we will begin to formulate a plan for reaching our goals.

SWOT Analysis

Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) is devoted to providing the highest care in the rehabilitation and skilled nursing industries. CRCC supplies both physical and emotional health of our residents and provides support to their families. Our employees work co-operatively to create a personalized treatment program centered around the patient’s well-being. CRCC is one part of a large company within the health care industry, Avalon Health Care Group (Avalon).

Avalon as a company desires to be a leader in their industry by developing new innovated ways to provide care. Avalon is committed to honesty, integrity, and a reverence for life. They monitor themselves through an oversight committee that ensures top management, middle management, and regular employees are adhering to strict ethical guidelines and follow organizational values.

While part of a larger organization, CRCC is independent in how it is managed. Not only is there corporate compliance, CRCC has their own oversight committee within the building to ensure CRCC adheres to Avalon’s vision as well as their own. As part of the goal setting process, a SWOT analysis was performed on CRCC; the following are the results.

CRCC’s strengths correlate directly to its opportunities. The “Enhanced Journey’s” program teaches the employees how to work with people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease; also, having 24-hour skilled nursing and therapy services available can be used as marketing tools to fill the vacancies in the building. The opportunities CRCC has with increasing their CMS rating and renovation projects in the building can mitigate employee turnover by making the building more aesthetically pleasing and provide employees a place to work in which they can have pride. As CRCC works to successfully build communication among the staff, hire new staff, and increase employee retention they can alleviate the threats of negative commentary on social media and keep employee morale high.

Maintaining Competitive Advantage

Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) will maintain its competitive advantage by creating memories. In his book, If Disney Ran Your Hospital: 9 ½ Things You Would Do Differently, author Fred Lee explains, “The true measure of your success is customer loyalty; it only takes one memorable experience to create a story.” He explains further that Disney does not look at the star ratings customers give them, but the comments their guests leave about their experiences. CRCC can use that same format as part of our quality measures. Identifying areas of dissatisfaction will help keep CRCC ahead of its peers by quickly identifying what our resident’s needs are and how to quickly meet those needs. Creating loyalty to CRCC among the residents and their families will help us lead our industry as families choose CRCC despite cost or a waiting list.

Another area CRCC will remain competitive is developing our staff. Utilizing our staff and mentoring them to develop leadership skills will help alleviate some of the burden from the administrative staff. Creating leaders also helps builds trust among employees and they will likely put more effort into their job to help the organization succeed in achieving its goals. Another benefit of training leaders is diversity; every person is unique in how they think and act, that diversity will help keep CRCC as a leader in its industry as creative ideas are verbalized, created, and manifested into reality.

The biggest competitive advantage CRCC has is the administration staff realizes not every plan will be successful. Often what holds business from achieving its goals is not knowing when to move on from an idea, or project. The administrative team has set guidelines for success on the evaluation metrics. A program will fail, need improvement, and continue as is; a program that fails its evaluation is re-evaluated with the MoSCoW tool to see where it is rated; if it is decided after a trial implementation that it “could be” or “won’t be” needed than it will be dropped and CRCC will move forward with its other programs to exploit its opportunities and minimize its threats while capitalizing on its strengths and mitigating its weaknesses.

Competing in International Markets

 There is concern with international healthcare as laws vary from country to country. While dementia is a global issue, only a few countries promote public awareness. Domestically we are the only country to have patient centered dementia care. Locally, Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) and its parent company Avalon Healthcare Group (Avalon) is the only company to have a program that is not only patient centered, but patient specific.

Another concern is local culture. Some cultures may not allow medical treatment; others may not allow people other than family to assume care responsibilities. Currently CRCC’s parent company, Avalon, is working with Chinese governments to create relationships with senior care companies. This could position Avalon as a global leader in dementia care.

Using a Diversification Strategy

In today’s society it is necessary for a business to promote something that sets them apart from other businesses in their industry; this is a diversification marketing strategy and it is a great opportunity to endorse a special cause, or purpose (Richter, Schommer, & Karna, 2017). Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) has a unique opportunity in their industry with their “Life’s Journey” program.

 With the increasing population of people with dementia and dementia related diseases CRCC has recreated an old military veteran program that focuses the treatment of the resident in a way they can understand and accept. The biggest concept of this program is meeting the resident on their level, in their world. There are four levels of cognitive need for people with dementia; independent, mild, moderate, and, advanced. The Life’s Journey programs teaches the employees to recognize which level the residents are and then maximize their quality of life through daily activities. Since this approach is tailored to the individual it helps train staff to be aware of the range of abilities among different people, and it helps the resident stay as cognitively functional as they can.

Is This Strategy Ethical?

In a society where dementia affects the majority of our population it is estimated that over half the people over 80 years old may have the disease; studies have shown dementia affects 1-in-3 seniors (World Health Organization, 2019). Dementia in itself is a blanket term that encompasses more than eight types of mental and cognitive diseases, the most common being Alzheimer’s. There is a saying in the healthcare industry, “Just because a person moves into a Skilled Nursing or Long-Term Care Home does not mean they should decline in anyway.” The Life’s Journey program is a perfect way to keep individuals, with or without dementia or other cognitive impairments, living life to their fullest potential.

Execution

Executing this plan can be broken down into four steps: first, we set specific priorities; second, we will collect and analyze our data; third establish and maintain a rhythm; fourth, evaluate our strategy. In the first step, we set specific priorities to prevent us losing focus. For example, our goal to have a net increase in resident census of 15% over six months we need to remain focused on our strengths and maximizing our opportunities towards drawing new people to our facility instead of marketing new programs to attract new clients, integrate new customer service training for employees, promote physical therapy, enhance our dining, and clean our image. While all of those things must be done, there is an order in which to do them; remaining focused and prioritizing is the first step in executing this strategy.

The second step of execution, analyze and collect data, will help Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) track and measure where it is in relation to its goals. It serves a business no purpose to implement changes if they do not monitor those changes. The third step may seem vague, indeed, establishing a rhythm is not specific; however, this is all encompassing. In the generalist of definitions, rhythm means a repeated pattern; establishing a pattern of communication between staff, a pattern of training, a pattern of expectation is paramount to our success. Establishing a rhythm will promote continuity within the organization. During step four we evaluate our plan. Much like step two, a business that does not evaluate their progression, or evaluate the data they have collected, has no way of measuring their success.

Is it Profitable? A Return on Investment

A cost analysis includes all expenditures that are direct, indirect, or intangible, as well as opportunity and potential risks. A list of benefits should include all direct and indirect revenues, increases from production and donations made from customer goodwill. Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) will utilize a cost-benefit analysis during the earlier phases to determine if the cost will be worth the effort.

Over time an organization will need to measure the amount it has gained versus the amount it has lost. This formula is called a return on investment (ROI). To calculate this, the organization takes the total benefits and divides them by the total cost of investment; the total is generally presented as a ratio or percentage. CRCC will complete an ROI when it evaluates the success of its strategy.

Conclusion

Avalon Health Care Group (Avalon) is committed to quality and desires to be a leader in the healthcare industry using innovation and compassion in everything they do. Avalon requires their care professionals be actively engaged in professional development and encourage continuing education to improve the industry and the overall quality of care it provides its customers.

 Avalon’s care communities are assessed by the states where they are located yearly; in addition, they require their facilities to participate in the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) program Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement (QAPI). Canyon Rim Care Center exemplifies the mission statement as it examines each new resident and as a clinical team determines the best course of care. CRCC’s main focus is on mental illness. Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) utilizes three analytical tools: the MOST analysis, the MoSCoW tool, and the SWOT analysis. Each analytical tool builds on itself to narrow the strategic plans used to achieve organizational goals. CRCC supplies both physical and emotional health of our residents and provides support to their families. Our employees work co-operatively to create a personalized treatment program centered around the patient’s well-being. CRCC’s strengths correlate directly to its opportunities. Canyon Rim Care Center (CRCC) will maintain its competitive advantage by creating memories. With the increasing population of people with dementia and dementia related diseases CRCC has recreated an old military veteran program that focuses the treatment of the resident in a way they can understand and accept. Executing this plan can be broken down into four steps: first, we set specific priorities; second, we will collect and analyze our data; third establish and maintain a rhythm; fourth, evaluate our strategy.

References

• Agwunobi, A., & Osborne, P. (2016). Dynamic Capabilities and Healthcare: AFRAMEWORK FOR ENHANCING THE COMPETITIVEADVANTAGE OFHOSPITALS. California Management Review, 58(4), 141–161. https://doi-org.wgu.idm.oclc.org/10.1525/cmr.2016.58.4.141
• Block, R. S., Lau, J., Block, D., & Block, D. (2010). U.S. Patent No. 7,822,654. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
• Lee, F. (2004). If Disney ran your hospital: 9 1/2 things you would do differently. Bozeman, MT: Second River healthcare press.
• Richter, A., Schommer, M., & Karna, A. (2017). The Performance Effects of Diversification in the Context of Its Decline: A Meta-Analytical Review. Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings, 2017(1), 1. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.wgu.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edb&AN=124522764&site=eds-live&scope=site
• World Health Organization (2019). Dementia. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dementia