77
THOUGHT
LEADERSHIP
lenging to deliver. ey're outside a
hospital's historical core of inpa-
tient care. And a major investment
in time, talent, and funds, along
with basic changes in structures
and processes, will be necessary to
compete — or even to collaborate
— with the innovative, well fi-
nanced companies seeking to take
away this segment of business.
However, the reasons to fight
for low-intensity business are more
compelling. For years, one key to
a hospital's value has been its deep
relationship with the people in its
community. ink of the ubiqui-
tous blue 'H' hospital signs all over
America. A loss of low-intensity
patients can erode these hard-won
relationships. As population health
management becomes more per-
vasive, a deep relationship with the
community will be even more im-
portant. Hospitals increasingly will
bear financial risk for the health of
a population and for the efficien-
cy and effectiveness of treatment
across settings. Managing within
that model will require that hos-
pitals influence the health of their
communities across a full spec-
trum of conditions and services.
A loss of low-intensity patients
and consumer loyalty — a loss of
"traffic" in Internet parlance — can
significantly undermine that effort.
In the Internet economy, cus-
tomer loyalty is fleeting. e loy-
alty that traditional providers have
enjoyed over the years could be
lost in the same way that MySpace
lost market share to Facebook, Best
Buy lost market share to Amazon,
and traditional taxis are losing
market share to Uber.
For any business, loss of traffic
results in loss of relevance. Once
lost, relevance is hard to regain.
ese are the rules of today's busi-
ness environment, and there is no
reason to think they will not apply
to healthcare. In this environment,
hospitals can't afford to give up
on low-intensity patients. e risk
is not just losing that portion of
total revenue, it's losing the patient
entirely.
Your comments are welcome.
I can be reached at kkaufman@
kaufmanhall.com.
e following column was
republished with permission from
Kaufman Hall. n
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