Build it and they will come...or will they? What happens after you open for business.

By Joanie White-Wagoner

So, you’ve finally had the ribbon-cutting ceremony on your new hospital or health clinic.

You’ve wrapped up all the media events and private tours with major donors and community leaders. Now it’s time to get to work.

Through all of the market studies, building planning and ongoing construction, you’ve dreamed of this day – when your capital project is actually providing care for patients.

This is where the rubber meets the road: Integration.

When you open a hospital, you have to make sure what you promised the community is actually what you are doing. Sometimes there is a blur between what you said a year ago and what is happening now. As a leader in the hospital you’ve got to make sure everyone is sharing the same vision you are.

With that said, it’s critical to make sure you are properly managing expectations at this stage for the facility’s patient volume and finances. You are not going to open and immediately see the level of volume to break even.

In this regard, you want to make sure you are managing the expectations of your key stakeholders, your board of directors and the community. It’s going to take some time to get to a point where you will break even. The organization needs to be financially stable enough to support the capital project for a few years while the hospital and its volume ramp up.

Make sure you plan for the unexpected. Once, I was working on a startup for a large regional health system. We had established a management agreement with a physician management group, which contained several different specialties. Several months before our planned opening, the management group dissolved. We were back at square one. Luckily, I had developed relationships with other providers and we were able to aggressively put together service lines and recruit. We opened on time.

I say this to illustrate how having backup contingencies is key because you never know when something might fall apart or change at the last minute. Make sure you are planning for the time it takes to build your staff. It typically takes as much as 18 months to hire good, quality physicians. You have to make sure you are doing your due diligence.

The same applies to nursing staff. When you are staffing a hospital or clinic you have to make sure you are rightsizing the staffing for the ramp-up of the facility. If you have a 200-bed hospital, you do not want to staff for 200 right out of the gate. You want to staff and ramp-up to meet the needs you anticipate in the beginning.

You also want to make sure that those vital specialties are in place, not just physicians, but staffing specialties as well. There are patient flow considerations to take into account too. When that patient comes in from the parking lot, and from every touchpoint until they leave, make sure you have that experience down to a science. To be a success, the environment has to be a patient and provider-centric as well. Often, this is a culture that is very different than what some people are used to.

Throughout these first few years of growth, it’s also very important as a health care leader to keep your team engaged and positive. Make sure you celebrate every win.

The hospital won’t have a large volume of patients to begin with, so you won’t be celebrating patient satisfaction scores just yet. You have to find a way to celebrate wins throughout this period to keep them motivated – excellence awards, safety awards, meeting and exceeding goals – they all help boost morale.

Your leaders need to be singing the praises of the new startup not only while it’s being built, but once it’s up and running too. That’s where boots-on-the-ground marketing is so vital to the success of the organization. Health care leaders need to be leaders in the community they serve: get involved in local boards and nonprofit groups, and get out there promoting the services you offer the community.

Launching a major capital project is not a “build it and they will come” scenario in health care, although a lot of organizations think that. It’s crucial that you are out in the community and serving as the face of the organization and promoting the services and quality that the new facility will bring, both before opening and after.  

Another very important aspect to keep top of mind when integrating your new startup is your physician referral network. Building and fostering a primary care and specialty referral network is key. Develop those relationships early and continue to foster them.

You’ve got to look at where your referral sources are and where your patient population lives. This does not just apply for hospitals; the same considerations apply for startup clinics as well. There will be similar overlaps for capital projects big and small.

However, the main goal should always be to meet the needs of the community you serve.  

It’s important to remember you are providing a service that will save lives, and transform the health of families for generations to come in the region you serve. Keep that mission in mind.

With hard work, faith, and patience, your startup will soon be up and running successfully, providing hundreds of jobs for staff and clinicians and delivering high-quality care for the community.