Exploring the Health Care Ecosystem for Low-Income Communities
Client: Regional trade association
The Challenge: The client in this case wanted to get a better handle on the implications and the opportunities sparked by the passage of a major federal reform of the health care system. The leader of the organization felt it was important to expose the organization's members to the reality of the current situation. More importantly, he wanted to build momentum within the region for a concerted effort to place innovation and excellence at the forefront of the association's work in low-income, under-served communities. Doing so, however, would require information, but an appeal from the heart to reform an antiquated service-delivery mindset.
Our Approach: Using our ecosystem analysis methodology, we developed a three-month strategic planning process that included in-depth interviews with stakeholders from the health care industry, extensive literature of secondary source material, and a ½ day facilitated strategy session with leaders of Federally Qualified Community Health Centers.
The Work: Through our work with this client, we demonstrated a number of our core business capabilities:
- data collection and data analysis;
- in-depth interviews with staff, physicians, and other stakeholders;
- facilitated planning sessions with senior leaders;
- environmental analysis of the political and economic environment;
- logic model and theory of change development;
- an organizational assessment in key functional and program areas;
- a comprehensive SWOT and PESTEL analysis;
- a visual representation of the client's ecosystem with communications recommendations on how it should be presented and framed to the board, staff, grantees, and other stakeholders.
Outcomes: In the end, we produced a written document summarizing the key findings and the implications of our ecosystems analysis. We also worked with a graphic designer to create a visual representation of the health care ecosystem today and in the future, from the perspective of low-income, under-served communities. That visual representation was then used during a strategic board retreat to help the leadership understand the opportunities available from a customer-driven perspective. The client was also able to develop a list of ways it could help its membership respond in a customer-driven manner.
