MHA-FPX5010_BiggioRyen_Assessment2_1
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Health Science
Date
Dec 6, 2023
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docx
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Uploaded by DeaconDangerSparrow36
1
Ryen Biggio
Capella University
Professor Barlow
MHA-FPX5010
November 2023
2
TOWS Matrix Analysis
Amedisys is a health care organization that provides high-quality hospice and therapy
care in the comfort of your home. We have been providing personalized care to an average of
445,000 patients each year since 1982. With the positive feedback that we receive from our
community, we can remain caring for our patients and achieve a high-quality star rating. We hold
our employees to the standard of our set mission, values, and vision for our organization (
About
Amedisys
). To maintain our competitive position and be proactive in our organizational
strategies, a TOWS analysis is a useful tool in the right direction. This analysis is made up of the
threats, opportunities, weaknesses, and strengths to a healthcare organization. It is helpful for the
decision-making processes to formulate strategies alternatives for our business to continue to
grow.
Table 1
TOWS analysis/matrix of Amedisys Home Health & Hospice Care Organization.
Threats
o
Pandemics
o
Patient Dissatisfaction
o
Increased Competition
Opportunities
o
Improved E-Referral System
o
Online Resources – Marketing Efforts
o
Expansion
Weaknesses
o
Service Areas
o
Limited Staff
o
Limited Insurance Coverage
o
Covered benefits
Strengths
o
Personalized Care
o
Nation-Wide
o
Quality of Care
o
Patient-Employee Relationship
3
When analyzing the threats
to Amedisys, these are the external, negative factors that can
affect our organization. An important, and relevant threat that we have experienced worldwide
recently is a pandemic. With COVID-19 occurring, we have had to put a lot of home health
services on pause until the spread of disease was under control. A pandemic like this is
threatening to a business like ours because both our patients and employees can get sick and that
also pushes care services further out of place.
Another threat that we can experience while servicing such a huge number of patients, is
patient dissatisfaction. This type of negative feedback can stem from promptness of care,
ineffective communication, insurance coverage, and unprofessional staff behavior (Lee et al.,
2011). In a patient satisfaction study analyzed by Chen and Beal, it was found that most patients
with Medicaid have reported lower satisfaction levels. This is due to them being associated with
more mental health issues, poor living environment, and few health benefits covered by
Medicaid (Chen & Beal, 2018). This complication with insurance will be a topic we cover later
in our analysis. The last threat to touch on, is the increased competition within the home health
and hospice care marketplace. Since our company is nation-wide, we can come into conflict with
other organizations. For example, if we open one of our clinics in a small town, the community
there may already be familiar with the current companies and may not want to switch to us
(Eger, 2018).
The opportunities are the external, positive factors. These possibilities for our
organization to success would be improved electronic referral systems, marketing efforts, and
expansion of clinics. To improve our connections to hospitals, an efficient e-referral program
needs to be set in place. This is how we receive referrals quickly, view patient information, and
run insurance. Continuing our upgrade to the ever-so-growing technology world, we want to
4
utilize our online resources for our marketing efforts. Our targeted audience for this would be the
elderly population, their family members that are the decision-makers, and the patient’s
physicians that recommend home health or hospice care (Purcarea, 2019). With the marketing
efforts of expanding the recognition of our company name, we also want to take advantage of the
opportunity to expand the number of clinics that we have within the country. Expansion of our
clinics can be a great opportunity to enhance our business reputation, service more communities,
and hire new staff. Broadening our service areas will also open our doors to a better revenue
stream and being able to meet the growing patient demand.
The weaknesses are the internal, negative factors. The biggest weakness that we do come
across, are the areas that we cannot service. If we do not have clinics within a certain number of
miles to a patient’s home, we cannot accommodate them. This factor correlates with another
weakness of being short staffed. Having limited staff in a certain area means that we are
declining patients for that reason alone, regardless of their needs.
Insurance contracts are also difficult to provide because of the number of different plans
and we cannot include all of them within our services. Our main health insurance coverage plan
that we are in contract with is Medicare. This leaves the low-income patients in a disadvantage.
Another issue with insurance coverage is that we might be able to accept it, but they do not cover
the extra health benefit that the patient would need. For example, we accept Aetna Medicare
patients but if they are going home with IV antibiotics then we cannot care for them since Aetna
does not pay for that extra requirement.
The strengths are the internal, positive factors. These circumstances indicate where we
are exceeding within our organization. What helps start the patient care in the right direction is
meeting with the patient while they are still at the hospital. Our staff asks them the required
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