It is important to think from a practical standpoint about whether the organization should expand, reduce, or maintain its scope once the direction of the organization has been decided. The strategic thinking map of adaptive strategic alternatives provides choices for the organization.
On March 26, 2010, President Barack Obama signed Public Law 111-148, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Links to an external site. Links to an external site into law. One of the elements within the PPACA is Section 2022, The Medicare Shared Savings Program – specifically Accountable Care Organizations Links to an external site. An ACO is an emerging healthcare reform model, limited to a handful of healthcare organizations across the country and defined as an entity that is clinically and fiscally accountable for the entire continuum of care that patients may need.
Let’s start with a reflective question based on your experiences, any prior learning, and/or opinion.
A. Based on what you have learned so far this term, do you think that healthcare organizations tend to give serious consideration to identifying competing alternatives? How so?
1. Do you believe that ACOs represent a vertical or horizontal form of integration for healthcare organizations?
2. Why would healthcare organizations and providers be interested in the development of an ACO? Consider different types of organizations and solo providers such as physicians.
3. Based on what we have learned in chapter 6 of the text and today’s healthcare environment, what opportunities are opened up through ACO’s? What challenges might healthcare organizations face?
4. Let’s now turn to different types and combinations of strategies. Review Exhibit 6-8 in your text. Organizations often pursue more than one strategy. What are some logical combinations of strategies, and how might they be linked together ? How might a combination of strategies advance the organization’s vision or mission?
TEXTBOOK: Ginter, P. M., Duncan, J. W., & Swayne, L. E. (2018). The Strategic Management of Health Care Organizations (8th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
