Niche Hospitals
How do you provide better medical care, and make more money? Open a small, private, niche hospital. USA Today has more on the Miracle Mile Medical Center:
How unique is medical care at Dr. Tepper’s challenge to traditional health care? Consider:
- liIt only has 17 beds (as opposed to hundreds.)
- At a time when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is fighting with the California Nurses Association over the proper ratio of nurses to patients (currently the ratio is 5 patients for every 1 nurse), the Miracle Mile Medical Center has a 1:1 ratio, and compassion and personal care are the norm rather than the exception. Talk about first doing no harm!
- The fully-accredited hospital not only has an area for families in each room, it is also a world-class orthopedic and spinal center.
- Because there is no middle management, patient care costs less, the savings are passed on to patients and insurance companies, and the business still has healthy profit margins.
- Doctors at the hospital are part of a virtual network that allows them to access patient information day or night from anywhere.
- When patients check out, they receive a card with a magnetic strip that contains all of their records and other pertinent hospital stay information.
So it is not surprising that when I spoke with Dr. Tepper last week, he said that the Miracle Mile Medical Center was “pioneering a new health care delivery model.”
Certainly patients at the boutique medical center notice the difference. Because Dr. Tepper runs his small hospital like the small business it is, he does plenty of patient surveys, and these surveys indicate a very high level of satisfaction. And whereas conventional hospitals are traditionally slow to respond to problems, this “lean and mean” small business is “agile and quick to respond to issues that may arise.” The result is a business that listens to its customers (the patients) and quickly responds to ensure continued quality care.
Alvin Narsey on June 28th, 2005 11:53 pm
we are certainly moving full steam ahead into the ultra niche retailer, and now the ultra niche hospital!
i was in Bumrungrad hospital last year in Bangkok, and this place ran like a machine. Surveys, quality management, personal relationship management, no wonder they were voted the number 1 hospital in south east asia!
great stuff
Russ on June 29th, 2005 7:04 am
It almost sounds too good to be true, but it does seem that the healthcare industry is changing.
Did you ever hear of the Green House Project?
It’s similar in principal to this kind of Niche Hospital.
Listen to your customers, provide a better service, and the money will follow!
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