5 Things Every Agency (Business) Must DO To Succeed

The home care and hospice industries are unique and special, even within the health care industry.  They work with people in their homes, helps them regain quality of life and maintain dignity of life.  As special as the services of home care and hospice are, they are still businesses.  In order for these services to be provided, and done well, the business must succeed.  This is one of the biggest challenges of home care and hospice in 2012.

The work “DO” in the title is highlighted because this blog post is all about actions, not theories and not platitudes that are done once and forgotten. There are five (5) core actions every agency/business must take to be successful.  If the actions are done right, then the business puts itself in a position to succeed and be able to support the services of home care and hospice.  

The core actions are:

1. STRATEGIC PLANNING:  Every agency/business must have a documented mission and routinely updated, in writing, short and long term strategies and actions.  Just like no plane would take off without a flight plan, no home care or hospice agency should operate without a relevant, well throughout out and documented strategy.
2. CONTINUOUSLY EVOLVING STRUCTURE:  Structure is the operation of the agency; organizational chart, jobs/tasks, processes, tools, metrics and reports.  The structure must be efficient for the agency to function, grow and survive industry change.  It also must continuously evolve to remain efficient.  
3. EFFICIENT USE OF TOOLS:  Software is the most important tool available to agencies.  It organized, controls, monitors and runs the business and everything that contributes to the business success.  Without using these tools successfully the business will not survive.  It is not good enough to have tools like good software.  The tools must be understood, efficiently used and optimized.
4. KNOW THE NUMBERS:  There are a relatively small number of metrics that an agency needs to monitor to know how it is performing.  It all boils down to ongoing, frequent monitoring of cost, revenue and cash-flow compared to a budget and other goals.
5. MANAGE TO THE NUMBERS:  It is not enough to know the numbers, to be successful an agency must manage to the numbers.  This means learning what makes up cost, revenue and cash-flow.  It also means knowing what to do when a data is not meeting the goals.

For the core actions to be successful they must be driven by the agency leadership.  This includes the traditional business leaders (e.g. CEO, CFO, COO, Administrator, owner), but it also must include the clinical leadership.  THIS APPLIES TO FREE STANDING, HOSPITAL BASED, NOT-FOR-PROFIT AND FOR-PROFIT AGENCIES.

More detail on each of the core actions will be discussed in future blogs.  This is a great place to start understanding the businesses of home care and hospice. 

Steve